If I could teach every empathetic person one relational/emotional skill, it would be making self-care a priority that comes first at LEAST half of the time. Constant caretaking without sufficient rest is damaging for the caretaker, the one who is being taken care of, and the relationship itself.

People who are generous and strong and good at managing emotion often end up in a caretaking habit by default. We know that even at the end of a terrible day, if someone comes to us with a need we can pull energy seemingly out of nothing in order to take care of them. The thing is, we're not pulling that energy out of nothing, we're pulling it from our cognitive/emotional capacity and our future. That's a great skill for an emergency but it is not sustainable; it cannot be a way of life.

When I was married, I spent about 80 percent of my energy on my spouse, who had no coping skills to speak of and worked at a job they hated. Every day I would soothe them and skirt around their sensitivities, thinking I was helping.

However, what I was doing was enabling them to feel okay without having to develop any skills at self-care. Rather than think 'what can I do to help myself feel better?' they simply unloaded all of their stress and bad feelings onto me, and I managed those feelings for them.

After 8 years we parted ways, and later they were in a relationship with someone who was quite selfish and did none of their emotional caretaking -- so by necessity my ex learned self-care skills which made their life better. All my caretaking and compromising my needs for their feelings did not help them to grow emotionally. I'm pretty sure it actually hindered their growth significantly.

Since I was able to be so intensely caretaking for someone for so long, I imagined I had no limits to the help I could give others. Then I ended up in three relationships which all took far more energy than they provided (mutually, I believe, as none of us had compatible needs & abilities at the time), which stripped me so far down that I could not get back out of the hole without medical, chemical help.

Until I experienced being suicidal and reality-broken for months, I did not admit to myself that I could not give to everyone whatever they wanted and still be a whole person. Until it almost killed me, I refused to value my needs above even the desires of others, much less over others' needs. But you know what? I'm no good to anyone if I am dead.

And emotional death is real. I was absolutely useless to the world for at least six months if not a year after I ran out of energy and if I hadn't had access to free doctor visits and cheap meds through my university, it would have been a lot longer of a period. It took me more than five years to recover to a point that felt complete, and it may have permanently reduced my capacity to function.

And you'd think I'd have learned my lesson, but in late 2015 and early 2016, I got in a pattern of caretaking without paying attention to my needs again, and this time it was the fact that Topaz is independent that saved me. They realized that they were relying on me more than was healthy, and they asked to take a break from our relationship. We took about six weeks separate -- reducing our communication to occasional, not being romantic, and not seeing each other in person. This allowed us to break the pattern of me ignoring my needs and focusing too much on Topaz. I can still get that way, but I'm more careful now and I am determined not to fall into that again.

I have found that when I sacrifice my mental health for another person, eventually my survival instincts will kick in -- in ways that I really don't want them to. Either I stop being able to feel empathy for them and develop a dread for their presence or I start escaping constantly in my every spare moment and cease being an actual person, or both. These things are obviously not helpful for the other person and they can destroy a relationship.

So my point in all this is that caretaking another person at the expense of your own needs is not sustainable. It will destroy the relationship if it continues too long, it will destroy the person sacrificing, AND it is ultimately damaging for the person who is being taken care of.

Coming to depend on someone for your needs and then having that suddenly ripped away is profoundly destabilizing and terrifying, but it is inevitable because no one has infinite energy. No one has the ability to give endlessly without being nourished enough to refill. If you love the person you're caretaking and you want to help them the most you can, you MUST take care of yourself. Otherwise you are setting them up for a really, really awful crash (and setting yourself up for the same).

As I said to a friend, you don't actually have the choice of caretaking someone without rest forever -- that's an illusion or maybe a delusion. The only choice you have is in what the end of the pattern looks like. It's literally impossible to continue giving while your needs are not met, while you are not taking in nourishment.

The problem is that caretaking others at one's own expense is not always bad. It's only unhealthy when it is the norm, which usually happens gradually. This is why you need to know what your needs are and pay attention to whether or not they are being met. I am sure everyone's tells are different, but usually there are things people do when they are nourished that they don't do when they are drained. To know if you're nourished it's important to keep some kind of log of those things if your memory is not that great (like mine), or check in with yourself every so often.

I'll give some of my needs and tells as an example. To be okay, I need to
1) spend at least three work nights a week relaxing and doing nothing effortful;
2) have a chunk of at least 12 hours of awake alone time every week;
3) connect with people in a meaningful but soundless way every day, such as through reading each others personal writing, texting, or snapchatting;
4) connect with people in a group setting at least twice a month (during pandemic, this is as a structured group video call);
5) not discuss stressful things close to bedtime;
6) have at least two days a week where I don't have to speak out loud or listen to speech without captions. This means not talking to my partner either, including when we are both in a shared space. Literally saying hi will drain me. It sounds small but is NOT.

I can do without any one of these needs occasionally, and when there is a crisis then it seems time to put those needs aside. But when there are crises often enough that a month goes by without me practicing good self-care, it's time to be conscientious about providing myself with what I need.

The red flags showing that I am not getting my needs met (sleep, food, mental rest, alone time) are 1) if I have not written a post (longer than 1 paragraph) on facebook or livejournal in three days or more, and 2) if my room gets messy enough that it could not be tidied in 30 minutes. My yellow flags include: getting easily irritated, going to bed late on a work night more than twice a week, failing to do basic things like dishes and laundry, or not posting to my snap story every day.

If you tend to give more than is good for you to your partner, I encourage you to think about the things that drain you, the things that nourish you, and the symptoms that show when you are drained or nourished. I encourage you try to distill these needs into concrete actions and ask your partner to help you maintain boundaries around them so that your needs are protected. In my experience it is much easier and it feels less like a slight to the other person when you make boundary maintenance a shared project.

It used to be that whenever I was dating someone and I thought they'd rather be spending time with someone else I would back off and not ask for any of their time. I didn't want to feel like I was competing and I didn't want to be interfering in their chance for maximum joy.

This was a wrong choice, not just because it was self-defeating and resulted in me missing out on my best chances to be close with some of my favorite people, but because I was essentially trying to make someone else's choices for them. It's not my job to predict how much of me someone else wants in their life, and I should be relying on them to tell me that, not trying to guess it based on my own observations. Also, someone might appear to be happier about something else, or even actually be happier about something else, without that meaning that happiness about me is invalid or not valuable.

So in the future I am going to resist this urge as much as possible, and if I feel like I am being put into a competitive situation or used as a consolation prize, then I will discuss that with the person. Or if I feel like we have different levels of desire for each other's company then I will ask them to define what they want from me.

Whatever the case, I will not allow my impulse to back off to be my first response to feeling like my time is not valued or desired. First I will ask questions.

(This is part of a post I made 3 years ago: relationship anarchy: we each only do what we want / my intentions & desires in all connections)

I am committed to doing my best to always:

respect your personhood: never mock parts of who you are*; never belittle you or call you names; never shut you up or treat you dismissively; never disrespect you in private while acting respectful in public; never assume rights to your things; never try to deliberately deceive you for my gain; never use your vulnerabilities against you; never deliberately or carelessly hurt you; never treat my convenience as more important than your need; never treat you as lesser; never break an agreement without explanation or apology; never use 'loopholes' to justify behavior that I know goes against the spirit of what was expressed.

respect your bodily autonomy: never to touch without consent and never to verbally disrespect or attempt to sway your choices on what to put in or on your body.

respect your agency: never to try to persuade you to do something you don't want to do; never to use emotional manipulation to get you to do something; never deliberately or carelessly make it difficult to say no.

(all of the 'respect' ones are my minimum requirements for friendly acquaintances)

harm none, if possible: do my best to not cause harm to others or myself, yet maintain willingness to cause slight harm to others if the cost of not doing so would be significant damage to myself. Considering not to whom the harm goes, but which harm would be greater.

negotiate expectations: never have any non-consensual expectations of you, nor tolerate you having them of me.

build expectations from desire, not fear: base expectations on practicality and the needs and desires of all affected rather than blocking out scary things.

allow relationships to grow or shrink on their own merit: never invest in or maintain a relationship just because of its type or role. be willing to take breaks or break up if there is a harmful pattern. note patterns and set boundaries if a pattern of behavior begins to cause me damage.

prioritize needs: consider who has the greater need when making decisions on who to give my energy to if I have to choose.

share with you: whatever resources I have to spare I will share with you.

allow you to be the only one responsible for your self-care: never to try to caretake you in a way that has not been negotiated. If you want or need me to caretake you in some way, you are responsible for explaining this and for accepting if I cannot do it. I will not try to read your mind or predict your desires.

support you in your self-care and growth to my best ability: encourage you spending time and energy on activities that nourish you and help you grow and learn, even when they are not at all beneficial to me.

be responsible for my own self-care: never to assume that you will caretake me in any circumstance, and to be prepared for you to be unavailable at any time. I will never expect you to read my mind or predict my desires.

respect my needs: check in with myself regularly on if I am getting my needs met, express it if there are unmet needs, accept help when it is offered and I want it. If one person cannot meet my need, seek another person instead of trying to get the first to change.

pay attention: absorb and try to fully engage with what you share with me. (also, express that this is a need for me!) Inform you as soon as I realize that I cannot pay attention right now. Also, inform you of my abilities regarding attention in general to give you the best chance of me being able to pay attention when it is important.

avoid error-full judgement: assume best intentions and ask questions before assigning meaning to behavior.

compassionately work shit out: kindly and frankly express and resolve upsets before they become resentments or harmful patterns, and empathize and explain before problem-solving.

respect your other connections: make room for them to be nourished and grow.

express affection: when and how I feel it, with consideration for how you feel most loved.

balance kindness with firmness: easily forgive mistakes and be gentle with people's feelings whenever possible, but never invalidate my own experience because the other person is sorry. Be willing to affirm when someone says they acted badly, if it is true.

*If there are parts of you that I cannot respect, I will not be your friend. For example, I cannot respect someone who believes in a flat earth, so we cannot be friends.

It has been about 2 years now since I last got my heart broken, and it has been about 3 years since I last fell in love. For a while I would fall every year or two and get my heart absolutely trampled, but I've been cautious for a while now.

I can afford to be cautious because I am fully nourished by my relationship with Topaz and I am more in love with them than I have ever been with anyone. I do want to experience falling in love with someone else again, since I know it will be such a different experience now.

I don't fetishize my relationships anymore which is a completely different experience that allows me to observe them in a much truer way. By fetishize I mean, I elevated the importance of connection far above the practicalities of helping each other get needs met.

In the past I have endured people putting no effort in, trying to push me to give to them in ways that would harm me, not expressing appreciation for who I am and what I do, not expressing encouragement for my growth, not being willing to learn themselves, and/or not trying to understand and fully know me. I did this because I felt an intuitive connection with the person and I wanted to keep experiencing that so badly that I was willing to suffer for 90% of the relationship for the sake of that 10% of connection.

I'm no longer doing this, not because I made a choice to stop doing it, but because I stopped over-valuing "spiritual" connections. It was a leftover fetish from when I was religious, and it was a really damaging one because I put that sensation at higher importance than anything else. I still love feeling an intuitive connection with someone, and it is still magical to me and something I feel super lucky to have with Topaz, but it is NOT more important than being treated with respect, appreciation, consent, and curiosity.

Before I let myself fall in love again, I will need to know that the person can be: appreciative of who I am (not just what I do), more than willing to navigate conflict with me, curious & eager to know me, independently growing, encouraging of my growth, open and honest, willing and able to invest effort in building our relationship, considering my emotions as important in making decisions that affect me, and not yearning for more than I can freely give. All of these things I offer in a relationship and for me to feel fulfilled I need to receive them as well.

If I never find another person like this, that is okay. I already got luckier than I would have ever imagined possible to have all of this and more with Topaz. And I can still build meaningful and nourishing connections without being in love.

One of the best things I have ever done (and do) for myself is save memories of people being loving to me or showing that they know/understand me.

I call this my "love memory bank" and at first I was writing stuff down but then I kept forgetting, so now it is pretty much a collection of screenshots from snapchat or texts or fb, whenever someone says something that makes me feel loved or understood.

Whenever I try to think of someone being loving to me, I can't remember almost anything, because my memory is the worst and anxiety makes the good stuff the hardest to access. But when I look through my love memory bank I am amazed at how sweet people are to me, and it is "proof" of being valued which is something my anxious brain needs.

Bonus: I can make myself feel loved anytime without anyone else having to do ANY work for it!

Disclaimer: the ideas in this post are just my own philosophical musings, not facts.

For most of my life I felt constantly hungry for love. Even while someone was being loving to me I would feel desperate for more. It wasn't until I was 27 that I even had one moment where I was receiving love and felt satisfied and like I didn't need more -- would enjoy it, but didn't need it. And it wasn't until I was 33 that I ever had that sensation on a regular basis.

I have this theory that until a person reaches a saturation point with loving nourishment, they can never feel relaxed or secure in any of their relationships. This one experience is so pivotal that it is like a stage of development, and a human's life perspective is profoundly changed once they have this experience. Parents are supposed to give this experience to their kids so that their kids can then enter adulthood ready to meet others as equals. Instead most parents don't, and most people enter adulthood still desperate for love, wanting to get without having to give, feeling like there is never enough. Like starved children we snatch at any nourishment offered and many times spill it everywhere.

People who felt fully loved as children often can't relate to feeling insecure or needy without logical cause. These people are put off by the expression of those feelings, thinking of them as irrational or silly, but I think feeling "full" of love is a real human need as powerful as the need for food or air. For me at least, having food in my hand is not comforting when it is not going to fill me and I doubt any more will ever come. We scarf it down as quick as we can so we have our hands free to grab the next scrap. Or we "save" it for when we will need it more, which is a day that almost never comes.

There are so many harms that can spring from this. Perhaps the biggest is that people who have never experienced saturation (I will call them hungry, for lack of a better word) are willing to accept all manner of ill treatment along with love because they are starving. It is ridiculous to expect people who have never had enough food to ever eat slowly or turn down crappy food.

In the same way, it makes no sense to expect people who have never felt fully loved to ever be satisfied with an easy amount of love, and it makes no sense to expect them to be able to say no to people who offer love as an appetizer to abuse. So many hungry people raised by abusive or selfish parents have absolutely no way to tell what is real love and what is bribery.

Many times we choke out our opportunities for real love because we get so desperate and cling so hard. We can delude ourselves, magnifying small kindnesses and minimizing all negatives to try and trick ourselves into feeling nourished; this prevents either person in the relationship from learning and growing. We can lose ourselves, becoming so desperate for the other person to keep loving us and not leave us that we compromise more and more of who we are until we are just a reflection of the other.

The worst part is that often, someone has to have experienced saturation themselves to be able to give it to someone else. A hungry person can't purely focus on nourishing someone else because as you feed them a part of you watches jealously, wishing you were the one getting that care.

I recognize it so easily now and it always makes me ache and feel an urge to throw out my whole life and dedicate it to making this person feel loved. But I can't do that, and it wouldn't be a good way to spend my life, pouring myself out endlessly for people who literally can't give back. That's not remotely sustainable.

Other than meeting one of those lucky ones who got saturated with love in childhood, I think we can only hope to find someone who wants to get love in the way we are inclined to give it, and wants to give love in the way we want to get it. I think other than basic ethics, this is the number 1 most important thing in a relationship.

I'd advise my former self to ask, first and foremost, as a precursor to close friendship and/or romance, "think of the three closest people in your life. What do you think they get out of their relationship with you? how do you bring them nourishment and joy most often? most easily? most happily? and on the other hand, what actions of others make you feel nourished and contented?" and then I'd consider whether I could feel nourished by the same things, and if I could nourish them in the way that works best for them.

A friend of mine was describing their feelings about being a support and it reminded me of this post: fear of love being taken away if I'm not comforting & helpful / my worth / who I am vs what I do and I realized that finally, FINALLY, after years and years of struggling with this compulsion, I have it under control. It's still there, to some extent, but I can tell it no.

And really Topaz gets all the credit for that, because they went in with me on a hiatus of our relationship and then still loved me after I hadn't given to them for a month and a half, and that taught me that I can be loved without being needed. And in the time since, when I have said that I need time for myself or said no to a request for help, they have been supportive -- not perfectly but so often that it averages out to them having a positive response when I say no to something they want me to do. And if I can value my needs without fearing losing my closest person, then I can observe my other connections in that light and know that they should support me in valuing my needs as I support them in valuing their needs.

This gives me a freedom beyond what I can describe. Being needed is a kind of burden that I always thought was the sacrifice one must make to be close to another person. To be able to be at the most profound level of closeness I have ever experienced, without either of us expecting the other to meet most of our needs in general, or any one of our needs in particular -- even our greatest needs? I wouldn't have even imagined it possible. I'm so grateful.

Disclaimer: all of this is within the context of us having a connection intimate enough that you value knowing my perception of you and vice versa. This does not apply to comments from non-intimates.

Part of the reason I have a hard time with my friends and lovers having a negative self-image is that it contradicts my perception of reality. And so, when I'm around them, I feel like I have to defend my perception of reality from them trying to tear it down or reshape it. I can't enjoy what I am experiencing as reality because the person that I'm with rejects the very existence of my reality. The way that many people feel when someone dumps all over their favorite show or book or movie is how I feel when my friend or lover dumps about themselves to me. It makes it so much harder to feel that same fresh excitement, because now there's this pain on top of it.

I do better with people who have an exaggeratedly positive value of their self worth because that's closer to how I see them, and it's erring in the right direction. My reality can easily stretch to encompass the idea that someone is better than they seem to me, but it breaks my reality to try to imagine that someone is worse than I perceive them to be.

None of this means that you can't share your feelings of low self-esteem with me, it just means that I need it to be framed as your feelings, and not as some kind of objective reality that you're trying to get me to accept. It's not an objective reality. It's not my reality, and your reality is not the only one that you are part of. If you are my friend or my lover, part of the fabric of my reality is you being a worthy person.

And frankly, I think it's just mean to respond to someone expressing happy feelings about something with telling them that they're wrong and the thing they like is terrible. If you think that the thing they like is terrible and they need to know, tell them at another moment, when you're not crushing their expression of happiness. Not that I am innocent of this!

I know that I sometimes crush people's happiness, but I don't do it on purpose. I don't do it if I realized what's happening. I do it because sometimes my thoughts pop out of my head without me considering whether or not I should say them. And once it happens once, I try to set a memory tag on that topic so I don't react that way again. That's all I ask of my friends, too: just try not to respond to my expressions of admiration by crushing them.

If you need to laugh it off by saying "ah yes I am the most enchantingly beautiful being ever to live" in an exaggerated manner that will be totally fine with me! I would actually love that even though I know you're not being earnest, because it feels playful and I can respond to it happily. Other good choices might be if you want to say "I'm glad you feel that way" or "okayyyyyy" or "there's no accounting for taste!" with a smile or just be silent in response, none of those things will crush my expression of happiness.

A few months ago I realized, through watching a friend who I see rarely react to my dynamic with Topaz, that Topaz and I argue -- or appear to argue -- a LOT. We use playful complaint to release irritation; this is not conflict but can look like it. We use tactless respectful disagreement to help us learn about each other, increase our knowledge, and broaden our understanding of each other and what we can teach each other. Our other arguments don't happen in front of other people, and are comparatively rare.

( playful complaint: not conflict )

( You can't mix play and passive aggression )

( lack of tact doesn't mean disrespect )

tactless discussions require COMPLETE trust

One thing you absolutely need in order to have tactless discussions without hurting each other is a MUTUAL, complete and sturdy trust that the other person considers your thoughts to be as important, accurate, and valid as their own. If there is any doubt that the other person truly respects the way you think or communicate, you must both use care and tact in phrasing so that you don't accidentally imply that the other person's ideas are inferior to yours. I have ruined friendships by being tactless when that trust was not there; the trust MUST COME FIRST and there is no forcing it. It is not okay to demand that someone trust you to respect them. You must prove it through repeated example. If the other person doesn't feel completely comfortable with you being tactless and vice versa, that trust is not there.

Other than playful complaint and tactless discussion, we rarely argue. Not to say that there are no difficulties; when we have an emotional clash it hurts a lot, but that happens pretty rarely and we usually learn something important from it. Also, it hurts only out of comparison to the unity and adoration we usually share, not due to any kind of meanness or carelessness with each other's feelings.

behaviors we avoid in conflict

We don't try to hurt each other emotionally -- it is so beyond the realm of what we think of as okay that I forget that some people do that. We don't call names, threaten, or yell. We don't make dismissive, disrespectful, callous, or derisive comments. We don't attack ourselves or engage in self-hate, especially not out loud where it hurts the other person also. We almost never assign motive rather than asking, and if we do we apologize sincerely after we realize. We don't assign blame to the other or ourselves. When we realize we hurt the other person, we do not defend our choices!!!

behaviors we practice in conflict

We trust each other to tell the truth about our own motives, emotions, and desires. We take responsibility for our mistakes by making plans to do better. When we realize we hurt the other person, we empathize first, then explain our motives for what we did (not defensively), then discuss how we will try to avoid hurting them this way again, and ask if there is anything the hurt person needs to help them feel better. Afterward we usually hug, sometimes go have a lay-down cuddle if it was really intense.

( accepting their stated motives as true: example )

In that moment I thought to myself how torturous it would be to not be able to have healing re-connection after a painful misunderstanding. I don't know how other people manage to just not talk about their upsets and wait for time to dull the ache and hope that they can accidentally happen into some re-connection along the way. I want to feel 100% back to normal connectedness by the time the clash is over, and the vast majority of the time, that's what happens. The only time that isn't true is when we're both nearly out of energy and then we clash and we both go into the negative. Then we tiptoe around each other for a bit and do passive-connection things like watch a show until we get back to neutral.

( arguments based on misunderstanding )

( shelving an unresolved discussion is a necessary skill )

I have learned that for me to be fully intimate with someone, they must either be able to discuss right away OR be willing and able to reflect on the issue on their own time and then talk with me when they finish. Either works, and I am sure there are other possible solutions as well. The basic need is for my partner to be willing and able to take responsibility for their share of the emotional work and actually do it.

1. being triggered is literal torture, not mere dislike or discomfort.
   
2. your thoughts can get stuck in loops that take outside intervention to fix.
   
3. pressuring someone into a sensory experience (taste touch smell sound sight) may force people to relive trauma. don't.
   
4. The wrong therapist is a waste of time and it will wear you down trying to get help from them. if you don't click, move on as quickly as you can.
   
5. it can look like laziness when people are literally doing their best because people have different amounts of energy.
   
6. falling in love or experiencing lots of joy doesn't cure chemical depression. Not even if it is literally the best thing you have ever experienced.
   
7. after a depression crisis is over, the recovery starts, but it can be long.
   
8. survival stress is cumulative and causes depression. If someone is scrambling to survive, expecting them to be reliable and present at any given point is unrealistic and sometimes cruel.

Anika prompted me to share my experience with mental illness and how it has influenced [my] life or personality.

I don't know exactly when I first became depressed but it developed between age 8 and 12, and by the time I was 13 I was praying almost all day every day for God to kill me. I didn't feel like I had the right to end my life or I would have. It eased up somewhat when I finally got my first real friend at 13, but it was still a fairly constant state for me until after I got out of my parents' house, got married, and went through 2 years of therapy for the sexual abuse I experienced as a child.


--- trigger: fear of unknown men, panic ---
During that 2 years, I was deeply afraid of all male strangers. When the apartment sent men around with leaf-blowers, I hid in the bedroom to put 2 doors between us. I held the axe and my breath and waited until I couldn't hear them any more. I knew, logically, that these people were unlikely to attack me. But logic didn't enter into it because I was in a state of triggered panic. I use the word triggered only very deliberately. Each time I knew men were within 10 feet of my doors or windows I was in a state of utter unthinking panic until they left. Heart pounding panic like you might feel if a bear is that close and staring right at you and growling. I couldn't go out alone. For months even going to the mailbox was too terrifying. (when I finally did go that 200 feet alone, I felt so proud of myself!).
--- end TW about terror of unknown men ---



--- trigger: penetrative sex causing flashback-like thoughts ---
The worst part was the triggers that would happen every time I had sex, starting with the first time I tried to have consensual penetrative sex. My body reacted by closing up. It felt horrible and I felt so guilty for not being able to do it, but I literally could not, no matter how much I wanted to! It got worse from there -- I started having horrible intrusive visions of children being violated whenever I would try to have sex that involved penetration. It was extremely difficult to think of sex as anything other than a source of pain, shame, loneliness, terror, and guilt. And I was so disappointed because with my conscious self, I wanted it! but my subconscious was much stronger.
--- end TW about penetrative sex ---


Relatedly, memories attach to weird things so don't ever insist that someone watch, listen to, smell, or taste things! because maybe that makes them feel a violation again in their mind, and they shouldn't have to tell you about it to get you to stop. Sometimes mental avoidance is an absolutely necessary coping strategy and if someone has to tell you "that makes me remember [traumatic event]" then you may be breaking their ability to stay out of a horrible loop of trauma replay.

The fear and intrusive thoughts were my main issue in that period of mental illness, but the amount of work I had to do on those things was so much that it made me feel hopeless. I felt like I would never get better. I wondered why bother living if every future day was going to involve reliving the worst feelings I had ever experienced. I kept going because I had a supportive partner who treated my healing as an important contribution he was making to the world.

Then about a year in, after three failed therapists and one therapist retiring, I found a therapist that I actually clicked with: one who had experienced worse trauma than I had and was now so free of triggers that they could sit next to their abuser without fear. The fact that they had healed that much made me feel that surely I could too, but it still was a long journey with a lot of pain in it.

Eventually we worked through a lot of previous traumas and I started to feel less scared and I was able to control my thoughts again. I started to feel normal, back to my old self. I still was sensitive to certain words, and movies with realistic (true to the experience of a victim, not glamorized rape myths) sexual abuse or rape would trigger me and make it so that my mind was trapped in a loop feeling that experience over and over, but those instances happened less and less often. I was able to go back to work. I was able to interact with strangers and go places by myself. I was able to perform the minimum required, like I had been before I started therapy.


Then there came a day when I suddenly realized that doing things didn't feel like slogging through cold mud. I even had energy to spare! I could be cheerful in the face of grumpiness! I could be social with strangers for hours and still do stuff when I got home - LOTS of stuff! I suddenly realized that I had never been lazy -- it was actually that I had lacked the energy to do more. All my energy had been going to running coping programs for the abuse that I endured.

When I didn't need to spend energy coping because I had processed enough of it, all that energy welled up and sprang out of me. I was so magical, so loving, so creative. I was outgoing, as I always knew my true self was. I felt able. I was not-depressed from 2006 to 2010, then had 8 months of depression, then was not-depressed again from mid-2011 to mid-2012. I was so, so active and productive in those 6 years, to the point that it boggles my mind now.


So through all that I learned that sometimes a thing you think everyone can do is literally impossible for some people, and that when people say they can't, it's not just an irresponsible way of saying "won't." If you can understand only one thing about mental illness, I want you to understand that you can't tell WHY someone can't do a thing and there isn't always external proof. You just have to trust them.

Later, I went into depression again because I spent more energy than I had, day after day, without getting nourished. It sounds like nothing, but I was more depressed from that than I was about the abuse, because with the abuse at least I got a clear path to healing, I got reassurance that healing was possible, and all kind people were supportive. Even kind people are generally not supportive of healing from depression that has "no real reason" and the acceptable "real" reasons are very limited. The attitude is "get over it already."

Not long after I realized the cause of that depression, I fixed the cause and began the most nourishing and healing connection of my life -- the thing I had always yearned for since I was small. Even though I had this new source of brilliant joy, I couldn't really feel it because the pain had worn such a rut in my brain that I couldn't get out. I could not access the happiness I knew my experiences should be giving me.


Every day I thought surely this is the worst it can get -- and then the next day was worse. It was so bad that I could not access any feelings except despair; I could not even care about the suffering of others, which has always been one of my primary motivations. When I thought about injustice and suffering and had no emotional response, I felt I had died inside and was no longer a person.


Finally I got desperate enough to go to the clinic and get medicine, which formed a protective layer over the bottom of the rut and allowed me to slowly heal, layer by layer, until the rut was gone. But then the protective layer kept me from feeling things deeply which started to make me feel like life was pointless, so I weaned myself off against medical advice. I know my own brain and I knew I no longer needed it because it had started to cause me harm rather than good.

That experience taught me that even with a perfect situation, even in a time that should be your happiest, if the chemicals in your brain are messed up you are not going to be able to be happy. The chemistry of your brain is stronger than the strongest will. Just like you can't will yourself out of mono, you can't will yourself out of depression.

Even though the crisis-level depression was over after 8 months of medication, the depression was not gone. It's like after a long illness when it finally breaks -- the healing is not done because the sickness is over, because your body has to recover from the battle. My mind had to recover, and that process was slowed by the constant and massive amount of energy I had to put into surviving because my job didn't pay enough for me to live on. For a while that process was not just slowed but reversed by the exhaustion of scraping a survival on what I could beg from my biofamily while I tried to convince employers that I was a valuable person and they should hire me and pay me a living wage.


When your ability to feed and shelter yourself is in constant doubt, there is no rest from the emotional and mental drain. Even when you are not actively worrying, it takes so much energy to keep it out of your conscious mind. Daily survival stress is cumulative and from myself and others I have seen, it always creates depression. Extra energy exists in a world of unicorns and dragons, and to think that you can have it while fighting to survive is a laugh.

A year ago I finally found a job that is perfect for me and pays me a living wage. Since then I have begun healing again, very slowly. I have only just now started feeling like I can actually count on this job, despite always doing my best and often getting appreciative comments from coworkers. I have only in the past few months started feeling like I can count on being able to stay in the place where I live.


I also have SAD (seasonal affective depression) but I have mostly learned how to cope with this so that it doesn't affect me too much. The most important part is that I have to get enough sleep on a fairly regular sleep schedule, and I HAVE to get up at LEAST three hours before dark. I have to get outside every day even if it's just 5 min, even if there is no sun. I need to drink lots of hot drinks (coffee, hot chocolate, tea) and try to stay as warm as possible. I need to eat regularly. I need to use my sunlight lamp as close to daily as I can manage.

What attitudes/behaviors have you feared inheriting from your bio family at any point in your life? How did/do you combat that fear?

I've actually never feared inheriting attitudes/behaviors from my bio family. I separated emotionally from them at a pretty young age, when my dad first told me that because they fed, clothed and sheltered me I owed them obedience. After that point I stopped thinking of them as my parents and thought of them as employers (who refused to pay me or allow me any autonomy). I stopped thinking of them as moral authorities at about age 12 because I watched them behave unethically -- and against their stated moral code -- over and over, while I obeyed my own moral code. I stopped thinking of them as any source of comfort when they gave away my cat (who was my best friend), told me to stop crying every night because it was disturbing their sleep, and when I finally made a friend, told me constantly that it wouldn't last and my friend didn't really love me. By the time I was 13, I knew that I was more developed than them in both ethics and relationship skills, and I just did what they told me to do so that I didn't get hit or sulked at. I no longer had any respect for them or thought of them as people I could or should emulate. On the contrary, many of the things I learned NOT to do I learned from my parents.

1) Don't ever try to make someone depend on you as their sole or best source of love.

So even if you think that your love is so big that no one else could ever match it, you do not say this! because if you do, you are threatening that person with never being well-loved if you stop loving them. That is something that an ethical person never threatens, and also something that only an extremely arrogant person could claim. There are plenty of people who are great at loving, and if you care about someone then you want them to be well-loved even if it is not by you. It is frankly abusive to claim that you are the best love someone will ever have.

2) Don't ever reference past gifts to try to get someone to do what you want.

This ruins the gift, crushes any sense of love that went with it, and turns it into a bribe with evil intent. It's manipulative and it reveals that you have no generosity; you are merely investing in future control. Once a gift is given, you should treat it as if it didn't even come from you: that will help keep you from tying strings to it.

3) Don't ever, EVER, reference in anger a fear, insecurity, longing, or other vulnerability that someone has shared with you.

This is a profound emotional violation which not only destroys any trust they had in you, it damages part of their ability to trust other people to hold their sharing in a sacred space.

4) Don't ever destroy someone's things because you are angry at them.

This is a symbolic violence that makes it clear you only are not hitting them because you fear repercussions, not because you actually consider it unacceptable. It is an implied threat of physical violence.

5) Don't try to bond with people without considering who they are and what they want; you cannot connect with a person if you are trying to make them be what they are not.

My dad wanted me to throw a football, play basketball, or play chess, none of which I wanted to do, none of which revealed anything about me. I think he genuinely wanted to connect, but he failed utterly because he was so focused on making me share his special interest. I don't think he ever even considered trying to learn about me in order to connect. If he had, he would have quickly learned that we shared a love of trees which would have easily leant itself to connecting activities.

6) Don't approach relationships as transactions, and don't try to get more than you give.

You cannot build a relationship with someone by trying to get them to give you something. My mom wanted me to tell her "poor baby" over how my dad treated her, to commiserate and console without asking her to make any changes. When I was really young I did pat and console and unintentionally relieve the discomfort that should have built to a breaking point in that relationship. At the age of 11 I started telling her to get a divorce, that it was not fair to force the three children in the house to have to live with a tyrant. I treated her like an adult and told her "yes it's wrong, and you have to defy, say no, take action. It will not get better if you do nothing." She never listened and just stopped talking to me at all. By the time my sister was 6, my mother had started using her for comfort and no longer had any interest in me.

7) Don't call names, and if you can't resist, never EVER use a name that reinforces the insecurities the person has about their self.

My parents had names they liked to call me when they were angry or just wanted to make me feel lesser. Some didn't matter to me because they were so obviously untrue (like when they called me a spoiled brat) but other names were used to deliberately mock the aspect I was most insecure about: my body. I watched them hurt me on purpose and I decided it was wrong and I would not do that to others. I have not been perfect but since I became an adult I have called people names very rarely, and never intentionally called a name that referenced someone's insecurity, if I was aware of it or even suspected it.

8) Do not contradict what other people say is true about their self; do not set yourself as a greater authority on them than they are.

At an early age, I saw something and told my parents about it and they told me it was impossible. That broke my sense of reality and I had to fight very hard to ever trust my own senses over what someone else says is true, if there is any subjectivity to the matter. Telling people that they are not who they say they are undermines their relationship with their self, and even if you are technically correct it is unacceptable to argue with someone about it. I have sometimes taken this aspect to an unhealthy extreme and let others define our shared experiences rather than contradict them, but I think the balance lies in not contradicting others about their emotions, motives, or identity, but still being willing to contradict them about the patterns or effects of their behavior.

Guilt is not necessary for goodness, and doesn't usually create goodness either.

Plenty of people cause harm and feel bad yet choose to keep on doing it. Does their feeling bad make them a good person? No, it makes them an average person with a guilt response. That bad feeling that many people initially experience when they realize that they probably have hurt someone is a morally neutral signal. If it has a good function, it is to warn you in the same way that physical pain is meant to warn you so that you can reduce the harm that's happening. If you wallow in the signal until you feel sufficiently punished, and then continue to do the same actions, you are no better than someone who simply ignores the signal until it goes away. Feelings do not have moral value; they are only signals. Your morality is defined by your actions.

A lot of people confuse guilt with empathy. Guilt is not empathy. Empathy is when you feel the pain that someone else is feeling like it was your own. Most people do not practice taking the perspective of others deeply enough and carefully enough to feel empathy except with their emotionally intimate people. Guilt is when you feel like you did something that was bad and you need to do penance or be punished. Feeling intense guilt whenever you hurt someone doesn't make you a good person or even a compassionate one. Guilty people often make literally the worst possible moral choices in order to feel punished, forgiven, or justified, or in order to block out the memory of their mistake. Empathetic people make choices which keep them from causing the same harm again, because it is about the other person and not about oneself. If what you are feeling is empathy, then being punished, being forgiven, doing penance, or feeling justified will NOT make you feel any better.

If you find yourself feeling guilty when you learn about oppressions that benefit you or suffering that you don't experience, I urge you to change your thinking from "if I have caused harm I should feel bad or be punished unless I am somehow justified in causing this harm" to "if I have caused harm I need to do the necessary work of changing my thoughts and actions so that I cause less harm in the future." Then, when you learn about a mistake you made, you don't need to feel guilty. You just need to figure out how to not make that same mistake in the future, and if you have hurt an intimate person (friend, lover, etc) with your mistakes, ask them how you can help them heal if it is possible (which it may not be and if so you must accept this).

Do not respond to feelings of guilt by avoiding the person who you feel guilty about hurting. Unless they have told you to leave them alone, avoiding them is probably compounding the harm you have caused by reducing the intimacy that is accessible to them. In cases where you are feeling guilt related to oppression this is especially true, because the more a person is marginalized, the less access they have to intimacy in general and the more harm your avoidance will cause. But don't dump your guilt on them either: work through it as quickly as you can so that after, you can be a friend to them.

When you were a child, your caretakers were supposed to teach you how to make good moral choices; but if they tried to do this by using punishment, they probably failed because they were relying on a guilt response. In a lot of us who were punished as children, that guilt response was so over-activated that it is entirely useless to us as adults. We feel guilt over morally neutral choices such as how much fat is in the food we eat and how much inconvenience we cause, and must shut down our guilt response to even survive. Sometimes this leads to us hurting others, but it doesn't have to. If we stop considering guilt and blame, and instead build our morality from scratch based on what causes the least harm and make sure we are open to constant development of what 'least harm' means, we can live moral lives and do good without any guilt response at all.

I am not exaggerating when I say I think this is the most important post I have ever made. So many people are swept under by guilt, and that stops people from developing into their best selves. It stops people from changing their behavior because they feel like they have to change their whole identity and divorce from their former self if they admit they did something they now consider morally wrong. Admitting you did wrong should not come with guilt or shame; in fact it should come with a sense of excitement at learning a better way to be human. I want to live in a world where people might regret their actions and wish they behaved differently, but they're not going to judge themselves as a bad person for making a mistake when they didn't know better. I want people to feel free to critique each other because everyone knows that mistakes are to be expected and if someone says "hey, your action was wrong" that doesn't imply anything negative about you as a person. Personally, if I let you know that I think something you did was wrong, that probably* means that I trust that you have the best of intentions.

So if you're reading this I beg of you, consider your perception of guilt. Consider developing a habitual response of asking yourself "how can I reduce this harm going forward?" Consider interrupting your negative self-talk guilt response with "this is not helpful to me or anyone else. I will do better next time by doing _______ and that is what matters." Consider increasing your chances of doing good by refusing to punish yourself; refusing to waste that energy that you could be using for good.

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*the exception is people who have control over the safety and nourishment of many others; then I will tell them when I think they did something wrong even though I probably have no faith at all in their intentions or willingness to change, because the stakes are much higher and I can't risk them being ignorant or able to feign ignorance, and I can't risk their example leading others to think that their behavior is okay.

To be good at consent, you have to be able to take a 'no' without external displays of hurt or offense. Because the fact that you'd never do an act that someone said no to means NOTHING if they are too afraid to tell you no because your reaction is worse than enduring things they don't want. What good is saying no when it has worse consequences than the inner turmoil of not stating your desires? If I don't say no, I can at least tell myself that my suffering is my own fault, whereas if I say no and the person reacts badly, I have to face the fact that they're more invested in not being rejected than they are in helping me to feel safe.

Reactions that I or someone I know have endured unwanted touch rather than facing include:

• withdrawing emotionally
• expressing self-loathing
• apologizing profusely as if they did something wrong
• self-harming
• sulking or pouting
• acting resentful or angry or insulted
• getting irritated at them over other things that are usually not a problem
• ceasing to initiate
• ceasing to play
• ceasing to cuddle
• ceasing to express romantic or sexual interest
• expressing a wish to be dead or not exist
• depreciation of self
• acting afraid to touch the person who said no
• making snarky comments at future similar moments like 'oh NOW you want me'
• disbelieving in the continued romantic/sexual interest of the other person.

To summarize, negative reactions include self-directed negativity, emotional and sexual withdrawal, and emotional punishment. The first two things aren't necessarily damaging to others in general, but as a reaction to a no they very often create a dynamic where the other person can't say no, and that can be very damaging.

If someone can't say no to you without fear of fall-out, they can't say no freely. And if they can't say no freely, it's not full consent. It's the responsibility of each person to make it as easy as possible for the other person to say no. Which is difficult, because it is disappointing when people say no and if you're feeling fragile it can spark a lot of negative feelings about yourself. I'm not saying don't feel those feelings: I'm saying don't make them the other person's problem.

Do whatever you need to do to manage your reaction without forcing the other person to comfort or placate you. Maybe have a list of things to read that remind you that you are loved and wanted and worthy. Maybe do something distracting like playing a game or watching a show to get past the initial overwhelm. Maybe have a set of things your person can do for you (that are easy for them! Low-energy-cost things) that will reassure you; or a set of things you can do for them, even. Maybe have a mantra you can repeat in your head to block out the negative reaction until it is small enough to handle internally. Maybe figure out the best way for them to express a 'no' that doesn't spark your insecurities so hard. Maybe give them a sentence they can say to reassure you when they say no -- and then trust in them and believe it.

I won't pretend like it's easy: it can be VERY hard. But the alternative is that your person will sometimes be merely enduring your touch and wishing you would stop. Sometimes they will experience that as merely frustrating or annoying but other times they may experience it as sexual assault or even rape. So it is simply necessary to be able to handle being told no, without your reaction causing distress to the one who said no. Nobody is automatically good at this; it is a skill that everyone has to develop. At points in my past I have done several of these and I've had several done to me. I am certain that most people who have had significant sexual experience have reacted to a 'no' in at least one of these ways.

A really good support skill for this is focusing on noticing non-verbal 'no's and asking if they actually want to continue when there is a strong change in tone, breathing, facial expression, body tension, body position, noises, etc. It is a lot easier for the person to say no when you opened the door for it, and it feels better to get a no when you opened the door for it, too. Instead of it feeling like rejection, it feels more mutual. However, even the most observant person in the world won't notice every non-verbal signal, so this is not enough on its own: it's just a good support skill. Even if you're great at noticing non-verbals (or think you are) you still need to create a dynamic where your lovers feel not just able to say 'no' or 'stop' in a dire situation, but comfortable enough to say 'nah, I don't feel like it' or 'okay I'm done now' at any time.

In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule
I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black
And I held my tongue as she told me,
"Son, fear is the heart of love."
- Death Cab For Cutie
There's this phenomenon most people experience when they first fall in love with someone; everything is more intense. One's lover seems like the best person ever to live. Just being in their presence is exciting and their touch feels magical. All conversations are filled with meaning and all shared experiences are filled with beauty. One craves the attention and time of one's lover; parting is difficult and reunions are joyous. Monogamous people call it "the honeymoon phase." Polyamorous people call it "new relationship energy" or NRE. Both sets of people assume that these feelings are a natural part of the beginning of a relationship but not a part of a mature relationship, as you can tell from the way they name it.

I call this experience "intimate focus energy" or IFE, and I know that it ends in most relationships not due to inevitable biology as the pop culture story goes, but due to a lack of understanding of what created that in the first place. At the beginning of any relationship there is what I call the fear-spark -- anxieties and fears that cause people to focus very intensely on each other. People worry that the other person won't like them, or that they will make a mistake, or that the other person will leave, and because of these fears they observe each other intently. It is this focus (when mutual), that allows for intensely intimate experiences.

But usually, when the fear-spark fades, people stop paying close attention. They stop noticing all the small things that make the other person a glorious creature; they stop being careful to be kind all the time; they stop watching for small signs of distress that they could soothe. And the IFE evaporates. Since they don't realize that it is their actions that have caused this, they can do nothing about it. Since they think it is natural for it to disappear, they let it stay gone.

People crave intimate focus energy and will do wild things to get it. They will induce fear in their lover in order for a fear-spark to create IFE again; they'll cheat, or try to make the other person jealous, or withdraw emotionally, or threaten to leave, or shove their anxieties on to the other person, or belittle, or invalidate, or make dangerous personal choices. I think most of the time they don't realize they're doing this -- they just have learned on some level that these behaviors can create the potential for IFE again through the fear-spark. Personally, I think the fear-spark is the worst possible way to build intimacy, especially when people are creating it through harmful behaviors.

I prefer to skip the fear-spark altogether. I know that I am more likely to get continued attention if I allow the other person to wonder about my intentions and desires, but that attention is not pure because it is motivated in part by fear. So I let people know my intentions, my desires, and my level of investment as soon as possible so that they don't have unknowns causing fear in those areas. I also do my best to avoid causing unnecessary fear in the other person. Sometimes this causes me to lose people, because they don't know how to maintain intimacy without the fear-spark, or they don't have enough desire in them to make up for the loss of the fear-spark. But it also means that the connections I do have can start out with a more mature and complete love, and that I can build positive IFE habits with them from the beginning.

I've always been the thrifty type: can't throw it out if there might still be some good in it! I'm like this with people to an often-detrimental extreme. I have a very hard time giving up and mostly can't manage to do it unless the other person already has. I was thinking about this tendency recently and asked myself "if I had no memory of this person before this year, would I put effort into connecting with them?" and realized that for one friend in particular the answer is "hell no." Then I tried to remember the last time there was a long stretch of them being a nourishing friend for me and realized that it had been years. I'm pretty sure they started thinking of me as "someone they used to be friends with" a long time ago -- while I was still trying to be their friend.

I might have more good people in my life if I hadn't spent so much time and energy trying to resurrect this friendship. I need a better cut-off point where I don't let literal years go by of me waiting for them to start being my friend in earnest. But what should the limit be? I know people go through hard times and I don't want to end a friendship because someone went through a period of low energy. I also don't want to continue one where the other person doesn't actually bother. I need criteria for me continuing to invest, and I need to actually and honestly evaluate where I am spending my energy. So tonight I am creating criteria:

1) nourishment: interacting with them is net-positive at least half of the time. (net-positive means I leave an interaction more nourished than drained).
2) shared effort: they put forth at least 1/3rd of the total effort for us to connect (I'm willing to adjust to meet them).
3) fair expectations: they don't expect me to do more than half of the emotional labor or more than half of the logistics labor.
4) building together: we have shared goals, and I can see actual evidence of this in their behavior and in where they devote their resources.
5) evidence of care: they take action to show that they care about my feelings and (without prompting) express a desire to help meet my needs.

If none of these criteria are true for more than three months, I should discuss this with the person and if nothing can be done to improve the situation, I should take a break from the person.

If I had used these criteria to evaluate my relationship with this one friend, I would have recognized that the relationship showed
1) lack of nourishment: it almost always was way more draining than nourishing.
2) lack of effort: they did less than 1/3rd of the total effort to connect us, probably less than 1/4th.
3) unfair expectations: they expected me to do way more than half and expected me to accommodate all their needs while they didn't do anything for mine.
4) minuscule building together: I saw very little evidence that they cared about what mattered to me.
5) no evidence of care: they never checked in about how their actions affected me, reacted defensively every time I tried to discuss it, and showed absolute disinterest in helping to meet my needs.

In contrast, my three closest people at the moment share these qualities:
1) nourishment: time together is net-positive way more than half of the time.
2) shared effort: they do way more than a third of connecting us (one of them actually does more than me on a fairly regular basis!).
3) fair expectations: they don't expect me to do more than half, and they offer to take half of the burden (or even more sometimes!) if they can.
4) building together: they show they care about community, justice, self-education, etc by hosting gathers with me, participating in protests, learning new things, etc.
5) evidence of care: they check in about how their actions affect me, and they offer to help me in whatever ways they can. They try to accommodate my communication needs and express appreciation when I move outside of my comfort zone for them.

I have to learn to accept when someone is not interested in investing in me, and I have to learn to stop pouring effort into them. I only have so much and I can't build good connections if I spend all my energy on people who do not want to create a positive feedback loop with me (wanting it to magically exist without them working for it doesn't count as 'wanting to create').

This one friend I'm talking about is someone who is in my top-five most-loved human beings of my entire 33+ years. I really wanted to be able to be connected with them. But I cannot. I will accept this and allow them to recede into my past, as I have receded into theirs.

If I could teach every empathetic person one relational/emotional skill, it would be making self-care a priority that comes first at LEAST half of the time.

Earlier this year I wrote about how loss of alone time, constant caretaking, and medication stigma almost killed me and that is one of the most important things I've ever written. This will be focusing on how constant caretaking without sufficient rest is damaging for the caretaker, the one who is being taken care of, and the relationship itself.

People who are generous and strong and good at managing emotion often end up in a caretaking habit by default. We know that even at the end of a terrible day, if someone comes to us with a need we can pull energy seemingly out of nothing in order to take care of them. The thing is, we're not pulling that energy out of nothing, we're pulling it from our cognitive/emotional reserves and our future. That's a great skill for an emergency but it is not sustainable; it cannot be a way of life.

When I was married, ( I spent a good half of my cognitive/emotional resources on my spouse ) All my caretaking and compromising my needs for their feelings did not help them to grow emotionally -- in fact I think it hindered their growth significantly.

Since I was able to be so intensely caretaking for someone for so long, I imagined I had no limits to the help I could give others. Then I ended up in three relationships which all took far more energy than they provided (mutually, I believe, as none of us had compatible needs & abilities at the time), which stripped me so far down that I could not get back out of the hole without medical, chemical help. Until I experienced being suicidal and reality-broken for months, I did not admit to myself that I could not give to everyone whatever they wanted and still be a healthy person. Until it almost killed me, I refused to value my needs above even the desires of others, much less over others' needs. But you know what? I'm no good to anyone if I am dead. And emotional death is real. I was absolutely useless to the world for at least six months if not a year after I ran out of energy and if I hadn't had access to free doctor visits and cheap meds through my university, it would have been a lot longer of a period. To a certain extent I am STILL recovering from that awful crash in late 2012.

And you'd think I'd have learned my lesson, but ( I got in a pattern of caretaking without paying attention to my needs again )

I have found that when I sacrifice my mental health for another person, eventually my survival instincts will kick in -- in ways that I really don't want them to. Either I stop being able to feel empathy for them and develop a dread for their presence or I start escaping constantly in my every spare moment and cease being an actual person, or both. These things are obviously not helpful for the other person and they can destroy a relationship. Kylei and I had no good connection for a year after we broke up because the pattern had gotten so deep that it was still there for many months afterward. Had we broken up earlier instead of staying in that sacrificing mode for each other, I am certain we would have healed much faster.

So my point in all this is that caretaking another person at the expense of your own needs is not sustainable. It will at least destroy the relationship if it continues too long and I think it can also destroy the person sacrificing, AND it is ultimately damaging for the person who is being taken care of. Coming to depend on someone for your needs and then having that ripped suddenly away when they run out of ability is profoundly destabilizing and terrifying, and it is inevitable because no one has infinite energy or the ability to give endlessly without being nourished enough to refill. If you love the person you're caretaking and you want to help them the most you can, you MUST take care of yourself. Otherwise you are setting them up for a really, really awful crash (and setting yourself up for the same).

As I said to a friend, you don't actually have the choice of caretaking someone without rest forever -- that's an illusion or maybe a delusion. The only choice you have is in what the end of the pattern looks like. It's literally impossible to continue giving while your needs are not met, while you are not taking in nourishment. I feel as sure about this as I am about the fact that you can't go endlessly without food.

The problem is that caretaking others at one's own expense is not always bad. It's only unhealthy when it is the norm, which usually happens gradually. This is why you need to know what your needs are and pay attention to whether or not they are being met. I am sure everyone's tells are different, but usually there are things people do when they are nourished that they don't do when they are drained. To know if you're nourished it's important to keep some kind of log of those things if your memory is not that great (like mine), or check in with yourself every so often.

( what I need to be mentally healthy, and my tells of being drained )

Someone recently asked me if I had any relationship check-in questions to determine a relationship's health. The closest thing I had was questions to determine if a relationship is difficult-but-worthwhile or possibly/definitely abusive, so I went through that list and expanded it into two larger sets of questions. The first is a set of yes/no questions, and any 'no' to these is a red flag for an abusive relationship. The second list is about the relative health of the relationship, and a 'no' is not necessarily a red flag but does mark a place that potentially needs work (a 'yellow' flag perhaps).

( to determine if the relationship is abusive )

( to determine if it is a worthwhile difficult relationship )

As my ADD has gotten more unmanageable and my memory has gotten worse at the same time my anxiety has risen to disorder levels, I find that I am needing a lot of the same tools I helped Kylei create when we were together (or tools I thought of back then).

I started a reassurance book for the worries that crop up over and over: for instance, feeling like Topaz doesn't value being immersed in me-ness and therefore doesn't want come to my house. In reality they are allergic, but I forget all the ramifications of that when I'm in the grip of anxiety. I wrote down all the reasons in clear, bold phrases so that I could re-read them and reassure myself rather than asking Topaz to reassure me of the same thing again. I actually can't remember, so the same things will give me relief every time I am reminded.

I am keeping this little book in my purple bag that I carry everywhere. Anytime I have a conflict where I am feeling unvalued, I'm going to write down whatever reassurances the person gives me. Anytime I'm feeling unvalued, I will check my book before asking for reassurance, so that people don't have to do it over and over. I'm probably going to go through my love bank also and write down things that feel like proof people love me. My own handwriting is comfortingly concrete: when I read my handwriting saying "So-n-so values my time and energy" it feels more real even then when they say it to me.

I'm also going to offer people the option to use 'check' as a code word like I used to use with Kylei, where they can say that to me if they think I'm feeling anxious and blowing things up. If I am feeling anxious, I will respond by going away, taking a few minutes to think about the situation through the lens of best intentions, calming myself, and coming back when I am not all mixed up with worries. All people have my permission to use this, but it is unlikely I will talk to you while anxious unless we have a close connection, and I won't go away unless I'm actually having an anxiety overload, so it's not an easy out of an uncomfortable conversation.

Thinking of other things I suggested for Kylei, I'm going to read back through old texts and emails when I am feeling disconnected or unloved (for Kylei I suggested they read my LJ, especially stuff tagged with their name). I was reading though old texts with Topaz to find other things they may have already reassured me on, and just skimming over the loving texts made me feel more connected, so I think that will be a good tool also. Hopefully I can remember it.

.

prompt from secret_keep: what can make a social interaction easier for you? Harder for you? (ideally, answer for both 1 on 1 and group interaction.)

One on one:
What makes this easier for me is if the person has areas in common with me in values and passions so that we have enough to talk about, and if they are good at asking interesting questions and/or taking at least 45% of the responsibility for coming up with topics and branches. What makes it harder is when we have clashing values that make me not even want to be near the person, or when they have few things they are passionate about, or when they have little experience with the passions we have in common, or if they do not try to give back in equal portion. I like conversations to go like this:

A: *asks interesting question*
B: *answers thoroughly, sharing whatever is relevant beyond the scope of the direct question. Asks related interesting question*
A: *answers thoroughly, sharing whatever is relevant beyond the scope of the direct question. Makes broad statement.*
B: *asks a specific question that helps define broad statement*

These patterns repeated and blended up make for a relaxing, nourishing conversation. Asking thoughtfully (and not too many questions that I have answered a million times like "where did you grow up"), sharing openly (which means including more than requested, answering the spirit of the question), and taking initiative are all qualities I need to not feel like it is mostly a drain. I am an outgoing person, but I have social anxiety, so while I might enjoy initiating/guiding conversation somewhat, that all takes work and I can't relax if the other person is just not going to talk when I don't guide the conversation. Sitting in silence with someone is not fun for me unless we're very very intimate.

In large groups:
What makes this easier for me is if I know everyone or if I have an outgoing ambassador friend who will introduce me to people or be the one to butt in to conversations and then include me. It's also easier if there is a meaningful shared activity like crafting or a discussion topic or playing get-to-know-you games. And it is easier if I go WITH someone, so that the transition from in my house to out is not in question. I don't do transitions in/out of my house well, so it takes a lot of spoons just to do that part. If someone picks me up, that makes social interaction SO MUCH EASIER, like a WORLD easier, but people don't do that. It eases the transition on both ends, and it removes any sense of deadline stress since it's not my responsibility any more. It also makes me feel free to drink (if I am driving myself I won't drink even a little unless I'm spending the night); drinking makes it easier to interact with people because I stop judging my words in five different ways before letting them out of my mouth. I also find it easier when I am wearing an outfit that feels comfortable and 'me' and wearing expressive makeup, because I feel like that helps to attract the right sort and scare off the others.

What makes it harder is when I don't know anyone, don't have an ambassador, don't have a meaningful activity or focus, have to drive myself alone, am stressed about money, am stressed about my car breaking, or have a deadline (that sets off mild panic as an ADD coping mechanism). Having to drive someone else makes it both easier and harder. It's more stressful, but it stresses me to GO rather than to stay. It's also much harder if it is an event I have to spend money on, even if I have the money, because I feel bad about spending money regardless of why. That might change when I have a job that pays me a living wage (which I have never had).

In small groups:
What makes these easier is the same as in large groups, but there is one thing that make it harder in small groups that doesn't matter in large ones. If the group is 7 people or fewer and there is anyone who seems ill-at-ease or like they're feeling excluded, I feel responsible for connecting with them and helping them to be connected, and I can't relax unless/until they seem to feel better. I'd love to NOT do this but so far I haven't been able to resist the impulse to try to help. The smaller the group, the more intensely I feel the need to do this. Which is one of the reasons why I want to cancel crafty parties if fewer than four people are attending and none of those people are outgoing ambassador types -- I am relaxed in larger groups in a way I cannot relax in small groups.

prompt from secret_keep: What is the first step for you when resolving a conflict with someone? What is your ideal first step when someone is trying to resolve a conflict with you?

1) Ask myself why I am upset. Something the person has said or done has upset me, and I have to figure out why before I can productively discuss it. So let's say that someone invited all my friends to an event, but not me. My first reaction will be to feel hurt, and when I ask myself why, it's because this seems to me to be deliberately excluding me. But this is not necessarily the case!

2) Assume the best. I consider other possibilities -- maybe they thought I was busy, or uninterested, or they thought they invited me already but didn't, or they accidentally double-clicked and unselected me (in the case of evites). If one of those possibilities is true, then it is not hurtful any more. So, I am prepared to accept alternative reasons. Sometimes I can resolve a conflict all by myself by using these two steps.

3) Ask their motives. I approach the person and tell them what I was feeling and why, mention the other possibilities I thought of so that they know I am not automatically assuming the worst, and ask what their reason was for their behavior. It is very important to explain that I am not assuming some negative motive, because assuming a negative motive sets up something that they have to prove to be false rather simply asking a question they can freely answer. Unfortunately, people will often assume that you are assigning a negative motive anyway, because they are so used to only being confronted if someone has made them into an opponent. Pre-emptively empathizing by explaining how you can see positive motive usually helps but not always. There is also the problem that sometimes what I think is a neutral motive others will see as a negative motive, and so they will feel defensive if I mention this 'neutral' motive as a possibility. I don't see a way around that, but explaining that I see it as neutral sometimes helps.

4) Accept their reason and ask for clarification if necessary rather than assuming a particular meaning for their reason. If their reason was one that didn't hurt me, yay! all is better! If their reason was hurtful, then there may be a discussion or I may have to accept a painful truth. Let's say in this case that the person didn't invite me because they didn't think of me, but I would have expected them to think of me if they desired my company in general. I would tell them that I wanted them to desire my company and why (probably because I desired theirs), leaving it open-ended or directly asking if they desired my company. They can either tell me that they do desire my company but didn't think of me because of some other reason, or they can tell me why they do not desire my company, or they can drop the subject, or they can express empathy and leave it at that.

5) Resolve any remaining issue. If it still hurts after I understand their motives, I will ask them to empathize and/or problem solve with me. Sometimes despite the motive being fine, the action itself is upsetting, and then I discuss that with them and try to find a solution. For instance, if they didn't invite me because they were inviting someone else who wasn't comfortable with me being around, I could accept this as not personal, but if I was close to this person it would hurt each time unless they messaged me to say "it's about so-n-so again, sorry to not invite you, still love you." or perhaps they could alternate inviting me or this other person. Sometimes there is no solution to be had, and then all I can ask is that they consider how I feel and express empathy.

My ideal first step when someone is resolving conflict with me is the same. I want them to 1) figure out why they are upset, 2) give me the benefit of the doubt in assuming that my reasons are not hurtful ones, 3) tell me what they felt about what I did/said, why they felt that way, and ask me about my motives in an accepting and non-blamey way (for instance "what was the reason I wasn't invited?" not "why didn't you care enough about me to include me?"), 4) accept my motives and empathy, and 5) help me figure out a solution for future occurrences if one can be found.

I read an article by joreth the other day that got me thinking about how I have never posted about my identity as a relationship anarchist. I tend to refer to myself as polyamorous because I use that as an umbrella term (which is not correct, just habit), but I don't line up with mainstream polyamory. I use the term 'relationship anarchist' because I have the intention of building nothing but continuously voluntary associations where anyone is free to leave at any time for any reason, and only does what they want. This will remain true unless I decide to raise children (I consider it unethical to leave children after you made a decision to parent them).

Mainstream polyamory, as I interpret it, is monogamy* with add-ons. Most polyamorous people I have known structure their relationships in a role-based hierarchy with romantic relationships on top, just like monogamy except with more people. Many of them put those relationships into an additional hierarchy, with 'primary' and 'secondary' etc. In mainstream polyamory as with monogamy, a relationship is created by achieving certain milestones and/or agreeing on certain limitations: you are 'officially' in a relationship when you say I love you, or when you decide to be exclusive or partially exclusive. There is an end goal, and the progression generally looks the same. One rides the relationship escalator: initiating romance, determining roles (boyfriend, girlfriend, etc), changing to fit each other better, committing, becoming comfortable, creating a legacy. OR the relationship is defined by the absence of those things, and understood as lesser for not having them.

I don't want any of that. I don't want to choose a role with all the un-negotiated expectations that usually come along with it. I don't want to change to fit someone else or have them do that for me. I don't want to have external commitments which I count on rather than making the decision anew every day. My legacy is what I learn and what I teach and it happens along the way, not at some end point, and not through 'relationship milestones.' This is certainly not due to being lazy, irresponsible, selfish, or uncaring, though those are often the perceptions people have of those who don't want to tie themselves to others. Rather, it is because I have found that roles are giant bundles of un-negotiated expectations (which are unethical) and that changing for any external reason or doing something because I agreed to do it even though I don't want to is usually both ineffective and damaging. Conversely, I am simply not nourished by changeless connections: I need change and growth in my connections and I need that change to be internally motivated for each person.

I am defining 'want' not as in transitory desire, but as in overall goals. So, while partially I may not 'want' to be open with you because it is uncomfortable, in my larger goals I have a VERY strong desire to maintain openness and this is larger than my transitory desire to be comfortable: it makes it so that I actually desire the momentary discomfort in pursuit of my overall desire. If I did not have that very strong overall desire, then being open just because I had agreed to would be a terrible idea. I would resent the person and the relationship for making me uncomfortable when I didn't want to be. Each time I did it when I didn't want to, that resentment would increase until it became unbearable and I broke up with the person, feeling great animosity towards them for 'stealing' so much of my effort (which they have not actually done! but having given what I didn't want to give, I feel stolen from nonetheless).

I am convinced this process happens with the vast majority of humans, and the only way I know to have a healthy relationship is for each person to do only what they genuinely want to do and would do regardless of the person or the connection. So, the only things I do for my romantic relationships are things I have the goal to do in any connection. For my lifesharers and core tribe, I make these things a higher priority, but they are intentions I have with any person I am connected to. Whether the relationship is romantic or not, sexual or not, makes no difference. (my friendships are just as important as other relationships)

( the intentions I have for myself in all connections, and what I desire from others )

*It is completely possible to be monogamous and negotiate your expectations of course. Or to have role-based polyamory where expectations are negotiated. It's just easier (though not less painful) to not negotiate them, so most people don't.

The post that introduced me to relationship anarchy: Relationship Anarchy Basics

prompt from aliki: What was the most hurtful thing you have ever said behind someone's back?

I'm really not sure. It was probably something I said as a teen, because I remember being taken to task for saying that someone I met was shallow, when I would not have said that to the person's face, and I probably said other things that would have hurt people. I have very very few memories from my teenage years, but I was very angry and pretty ignorant and probably said mean things (I know I used ableist slurs). As far as I can remember I have always considered things-people-can't-help (like bodies) to be off limits for attacking, but I'm only 90% sure that has always been true.

If I have said something hurtful behind someone's back recently, it would be because I didn't realize that it would be hurtful. If I realize it would be hurtful, I either tell them directly or I keep it to myself. Well, that's not completely true, because I have had connections that lapsed where I then reflected on them and said to someone else that that person was selfish, but I have never told that person that I think they are selfish. It's that place where we're not building anything, so to go to them and say "I have this problem with you" doesn't make sense, but it's still a sore spot that I feel the need to talk about sometimes. I don't know if I have a tendency to be drawn to selfish people, if selfishness is common, if I have a higher bar for what is selfishness than most people, or if I tend to apply a selfish label unfairly (perhaps due to me not asking for what I want, or due to me not realizing their limitations), but I have more than two lapsed connections with people I now see as selfish. I think probably all of those things are true.

I consider it unethical to talk negatively (or in a way that could be perceived as negative) about someone behind their back, so I do my best not to do it. (I'm not quite as intense about it as I used to be, but the gist of this post is still true) I consider it a form of lying, in that the assumption is that a friend does not have an issue with your behavior unless they say so. If I have an active connection with someone I won't do it unless it is in the context of preparing to talk to them about my issue with them (for example, talking to Heather about an issue I have with Kylei or vice versa, before talking to the person directly). If I can't bring myself to talk to the person about the problem, then I consider myself partly to blame (except in cases of abuse) as I have not given them the chance to realize or explain. It's okay if I can't talk to them or can't do it now, but I don't get to badmouth them in the meantime just to relieve my upsetness. I need to NOT vent because staying in that discomfort provides motivation and momentum for dealing with the person directly. Not to say I am always good at this! But it is always my goal, I live up to it I'd say at least 95% of the time, and I feel regret when I do not live up to it.

I do not consider it talking about someone behind their back to talk publicly about an issue I have with someone. It fits with my ethics to let them know at the same time I am letting everyone else know. This doesn't usually happen unless they have ended our relationship, because out of courtesy I prefer to tell someone first and have the chance to talk about it in the past tense with a solution on top rather than talk about it publicly before the working-out process. But if you stomped on my heart and I want to tell that story, it's my story to tell, and refraining is courtesy. If I know a person has strong privacy restrictions, I won't talk about them publicly in any specifics, and if I am upset with a person this may result in me writing about someone in a friends-locked entry. Usually I still have them added so that they can see, and otherwise I have offered to email entries to the people who they are about.

I can't stand people talking about me negatively in a way that they haven't told me about. I hate the idea of wandering around thinking that people have no problem with my behavior when they do, and I hate the idea of being ignorant of some failing I could be working on. While the idea of someone calling me out in public is scary, I'd far rather know than not know.

If I gave you this link, please understand that it was motivated by affection and/or respect. I have this conversation over and over, and it takes a lot out of me, so I needed to create a less energy-intense way to communicate about it. If I didn't respect you and/or feel affection for you, I would not risk giving you this link. If I have already talked with you about it*, this is my low-energy way of reminding you (with bonus of allowing bystanders to also learn).

I give this link in response to people using slurs. You probably didn't realize that what you were saying was a slur, or maybe you didn't realize the harm. The most common mistakes I come across are use of the words stupid, lame, crazy, or insane. Usually I put asterisks in these to make it clear that I consider them slurs, but sometimes people can't tell what word I am referring to, so I'm writing them out here for clarity.


TW slurs--------

a full list of the slurs which I may be referring to:
stupid, idiot, dumb (if you mean the physical quality, the term is 'mute' or 'nonverbal'), derp, ermahgerd, duh, crazy, insane, psychotic, wacko, mental, psycho, cray-cray, bitch, douche, pussy, cunt, lame, ghetto, blind or deaf (when used to mean "not paying attention"), gay, retard/ed, nigger, jew or gyp (as in to swindle/cheat), tranny, shemale, cripple, slut, whore, fag/got

------------end TW


Here I explain what is harmful about using these words.

Here I explain why it is still a problem to use slurs even when you are not aiming them at a person.

Here I explain how you are not missing out by avoiding these words: you are becoming a better communicator.

If you read all of this and you still want to feel free to use slurs, please let me know. That is a dealbreaker for me with friendship. I can totally understand it being difficult and I won't hold it against you at all if you make mistakes, but if you have no intention of removing slurs from your communication, you are not a safe person for me and I do not want to invest in you.

*I find it almost impossible to remind people in more direct ways because I empathize so hard with trying and making mistakes and how embarrassing that is. If I give you this link and you have already decided to try not to use slurs, please feel no need to apologize or engage about it, just take it as a reminder. I promise I don't need an apology; I understand that it is a process.

If you can't say no to someone without facing a negative reaction (such as pouting, begging, withdrawing, attacking, or response-blaming), they are not giving you the option of true consent. If someone can't say no to you without worrying about how they will deal with your reaction, you are not giving them the option of true consent. Coercion is the sneaky underpinning to this -- sometimes unintentional, but every bit as much a problem whether it is intentional or not. It doesn't become harmless just because someone isn't doing it on purpose.

Expressing disappointment is fine -- as long as you're not making the other person feel like they are responsible for making you feel better. Usually you will have to overtly take responsibility for handling your disappointment for this to work. For example: "I'm feeling disappointed that you don't want to [do the thing] with me. I'm gonna go [practice self care] to feel better; I'll be back" <- that is great as long as it isn't passive aggressive but is sincere effort to handle one's own emotions.

What is not okay is "I'm disappointed that you won't [do the thing] with me." *waits for the other person to make me feel better* or "I'm disappointed" *goes in another room to sulk and wait for them to come make me feel better*

That is effectively punishing them for saying no by making them do emotional work in order to have a positive environment. If you can't process out of your disappointment very very quickly, don't do it in their presence.

Talk about dysphoria (social, bodily, etc) in relation to your own gender identity. Do you experience it? If so, how, and what means do you take to fight it? What kind of affects does it have on your mental life? What would you say to others who have dysphoria too? (from here)

I experience it when I hear or think about my own voice, when someone tries to make me feel loved and included but genders me to do it (thus having the opposite effect), and when I think about or am reminded of how not-real other people consider my identity. I fight bodily dysphoria mostly by not thinking about it, because there is nothing I can do to get a deeper voice or whatever else right now. When it is someone trying to be nice, I either try to replace the comment in my head with something that might feel nice, or I talk to them about how bad it feels when people gender me.

The effect it has on me mentally is to take energy. I spend so much energy shutting out thoughts that would otherwise cause me pain and damage. I think this results in mental fog, and is partly to blame for my brain issues. It makes my ADD worse. But it can't be helped because the alternative is much worse.

For others with dysphoria, I would say:
1) do your best to minimize contact with people who invalidate your identity, regardless of how innocently they may do it.

2) tell the people you trust how things feel, and tell them you need them to self-educate so that you can share with them without having to give a 101 lecture first.

3) when you can fall apart, do. Plan for this sometimes.

4) when you can't fall apart, distract. If a thought comes into your head, focus immediately on something else that engages your mind. Any topic you could ramble about for a relatively long time will do. Perhaps make a list and carry it with you. Or have a game you play on your phone.

5) if you don't have people in your life with similar experience, do your best to find them. It is almost impossible to feel supported when no one can empathize because they cannot or will not take your perspective. Find people who get it.

6) in general, take care of other needs. It is when I am missing other things that my dysphoria is the worst. Check in with yourself to learn what you need, and then do your best to get those needs met. If you can, eat enough veggies, drink enough water, get enough sleep (occasional naps help). Figure out specific needs within your relationships and communicate those -- for instance "I need at least 2 hugs a day and I need someone to ask me questions about my life each day: can you help me with these needs?" Be willing to get your needs met by multiple people because no one can or should be your whole needs store.

(from Topaz) What, if anything, do you think you've learned FROM me; And, what, if anything, do you feel you've learned from being with me; And, what, if any, big things have you learned since we got together?

Ummm... I have learned a huge lot and my memory is full of holes, so I'm not even gonna try to make this comprehensive.

From you?
I have learned what media really means. I learned that even hostile anti-theists can have understandings of the world that fit with my spiritual beliefs. I learned that nail polish can be butch. I learned that chameleoning can be a powerful tool against oppression and that it doesn't always touch your soul. I learned that Carl Sagan is wonderful, and that wonder is a core value of mine. I learned about and came to love Michael Jackson, M.I.A., Lowkey, Melissa Ferrick, Sonia Leigh, and Ani Difranco. I learned that I dearly love giving presents to people who love getting them and have a variety of interests. I learned that sometimes, doing dishes can be worth it. I learned that I can enjoy cauliflower. I learned that I like many kinds of sex that I hadn't been interested in before. I learned that sometimes climbing a mountain is not the worst thing. I learned what a migraine is, and why it is so not the same as a really bad headache.

From being with you?
I've learned to be more patient with communication, and that 'I can't tell you yet' is not necessarily code for 'I'm going to put this off until you forget.' I learned that I can't deal with much indirect communication, and I learned how to respond to it in a useful way. I learned that I really love sweetness. I learned that I can ask for what I want without fear of pressuring someone into giving it. I learned that I really value (maybe need) independence in a lover, mixed with willingness to express needs and desires. I learned that I can brush someone's hair for literal hours, and that I miss having hair long enough to brush.

Overall big things?
I learned I don't believe in an afterlife or in spanking (both from logical conversations with you). I learned a ridiculously huge amount about racism, cissexism, ableism, and oppression in general. I learned that I have talent in stats. I learned that my ADD is bad enough that I can't really function without meds. I learned that my fractals are beautiful to more people than just me. I learned that I suck at picking people and need to get input from my insightful friends. I learned that LJ is still alive and that I can be 'in' it like I did years ago. I learned that I can motivate myself to do things with colorful stickers. I learned that my mental health is negatively affected when I don't eat breakfast and lunch. I learned that I can forge on ahead with something completely new, even when my future rests on that thing. I learned that parts of my biofamily are kinda great and that my bioparent M is the most selfish person I've known. I learned that I need group focus time as well as one-on-one. I've learned that I need for my lover(s) to combine specific compliments with touch for me to feel desirable or aesthetically pleasing. I learned that nourishing connections are increasingly difficult for me to find. I learned that similarity of inner self or similarity of overall goals doesn't make a connection nourishing: that I need connections with people who are on a growth spiral and not too far away from me. I learned that my privilege as a colonizer race means that it would be inappropriate for me to profit from doing spiritual healings or divination (since I only have access to these things due to historical and modern spiritual theft). I learned that I can build spiritual practice that is more growth-inducing, challenging, and meaningful for me than any externally-created practice I have come across.

I've been thinking about this for a while and today I had a breakdown that brought it very sharply to mind. I'm worried that I won't be able to express this in a way that makes sense and is clear but I'm gonna try. Please read with the understanding that I may phrase things badly and need questions so that I can clarify.

As a person who has dealt with severe memory issues and attention issues and depression, I know that I am not reliable. I can be draining. I can get stuck in an old trauma and pull others in. I can get blamey. I can't help these things. They're part of my brain. But I can try to temper the effects.

There are a number of ways I do this. Number one is using whatever support resources I have. When I have access to the right medication, I take it. This isn't just for me, but to allow myself to be fully present and at my most capable to deal with my own volatile emotions so that I don't hurt others. If I had a therapist who actually matched me (asked me meaningful questions and prodded me to greater self-understanding, while not applying false rubrics to my life), I would also be in therapy.

A close second is practicing self-awareness as much as possible.  I want to be able to tell people what I want and need, so that they can decide if that is something they are willing and able to give; if I am not self-aware, I am literally incapable of doing that. I also want to be able to talk myself down if that is possible - note my feelings and check where they are coming from. Many times this is all I need to do to resolve a feeling. One aspect of self-awareness is when I have an emotional breakdown (like I did today) I analyse where the feelings are coming from and don't apply them to the wrong person. I will often explain why I'm feeling these things to the person who has sparked the feelings, and if I have no issue with their behavior I will assure them that I do not think they did anything wrong.

A backup for self-awareness that I use is willingness to be checked by the people I trust to know, respect, and love me. In practice this list is mostly Topaz, Heather, and Kylei, but there are many others who have known me for a long time who I would also value checking me. If they notice that I am going down a path that seems bad for me, or they feel like I am overreacting to something, or that in any other way I am lacking awareness of myself or my behavior in a potentially damaging way, they have my permission and encouragement to call me on it. My ability to notice things is vastly increased by adding more observers.

Last is self-care. This is vital. I know that all of my worst issues are exacerbated when I am not practicing enough self-care, so I do. I spend at least one evening per week alone (usually a day: I know this is a huge privilege). I have on my daily goals list to read, write, share openly with someone, take a photo or make visual art, connect with my body through movement and/or connect with nature, and sing aloud and/or do a spiritual practice. I have weekly goals of cleaning, crafting, accomplishing something scary, spending time with 2 or more friends, and a few other things. I don't ever manage to do all of these, but keeping them in mind as a goal means that I do far better than I otherwise would.

I need these practices in people close to me. I can handle people blowing up as long as they are willing to be told "I think you're blowing this out of proportion" or "please go take some time and calm down before talking to me about this." (Kylei is great about this) I can handle people taking my words in a way I didn't mean and getting very upset at me as long as when I say no, that isn't what I meant, they take it in and choose to believe me. (Topaz is very good about this) I can handle people making any choices for their own life as long as I am not expected to react any way other than honestly. (Heather is the one who I can be most brazen with: for instance I can tell them how disgusting I think meat is without them taking it at all personally) I can handle people crying and wilding out around me if they explain to me what is happening and don't blame me for their reactions. I can handle people sometimes treating me badly as long as when I point it out and ask for change, they check within themselves and do their best to make that change to keep from hurting me again. And it's so important that I be able to get very upset or sad without the person taking it personally, because only then can I feel safe sharing all my feelings with them.

These needs I have from others are also very important practices of mine, so that I can offer a balance.

Note: if I say something problematic please mention it because I'm talking about some things I don't have personal experience with (chronic pain/fatigue/anxiety) so I may be off-base and have no idea.

Being late, cancelling plans, not being up for some activity; these things are called rude and that's fucking ableist. Why? because when people with chronic pain/fatigue/depression/anxiety/other disability can't make it on time or at all, that is not* because they don't care or aren't invested in you or don't respect you, it's because it would cause them damage to do it. When you value your own time so much that you would rather someone else be damaged than 'waste' your time, you are being incredibly selfish.

I get being an ignorant ableist poopsicle because ( I was one! )

So my basic, decent-human level of inclusion is to be prepared for something to interfere with plans, and not to take it personally. I communicate what I want (that you keep plans and let me know as far in advance as possible if you are cancelling), and believe you when you tell me you did your best. I ask for reassurance if I start to feel neglected or avoided or whatever, and I trust that when I do, you will tell me truthfully if you don't want to do the thing with me or if you didn't have the energy to do it. I will warn you if I need to keep to a particular schedule and if so, I will just continue without you, with no resentment. If I need someone to be there no matter what, I will tell you ahead of time and check in the day before to get a more accurate prediction of whether or not you will be up for it. If you are not up for it, I will find someone else to go with me or I'll postpone. I look at it like I would weather. It's just not something you can control and predicting it is notoriously unreliable. And I do this for nondisabled people as well because you can't have true consent if saying no at any point would result in punishment (pouting/passive-aggression is certainly punishment, btw).

For me, I forget things and run out of time despite trying my absolute hardest, and I need people to be understanding of that. My memory is so awful now that I often can't tie a person to a memory. So I will remember that someone I love deeply is allergic to that flower that starts with an H and is red, or that someone I love adores a particular band, but I often can't remember who. This is another thing that is often conflated with love, and I DEFINITELY used to do it. I used to express love by carefully memorizing things and mentioning them later when they were relevant. Now I worry people won't feel loved because I won't be able to remember the right things. I still try just as hard and care just as much, it just doesn't work. (I started keeping a list on my phone of things people especially love. Hopefully that will be helpful to my memory, since seeing things in print often helps me remember better than hearing them.) Unless it's in print or photo, I have ZERO control over what falls out of my sieve of a memory, and some of my most treasured experiences are gone. I may forget the best thing we ever did together if neither of us takes photos or writes it down (even then I'll forget until I read it or see the photos). That is unbearably tragic to me and I try not to reflect on it. Please, never assume that I love you less because I forgot something. It could literally be the best thing to ever happen in my life and I might still forget it. There are countless meaningful comments, emails, and messages that I have forgotten even though I appreciated them immensely. So many things I planned to do but forgot. And I put so many reminders on my calendar already, it's just not possible to do it for everything. And then, sometimes I fucking forget what I was doing when I pick up my phone and my intended reminder never gets made!!!

When I say run out of time, I mean that I planned enough time and then some, but then my brain wasn't up to the task, and it took an extra 10-30 minutes because I kept forgetting things and going back upstairs or back in the house, or I drove right past the exit, or I forgot that I was almost out of gas, or I got hyperfocused on something and lost the time (rare because I usually refuse to get deeply involved in anything before a plan, for this reason) or I forgot to eat and was feeling shaky and dizzy and unsafe to drive and had to sit down and eat a few bites to be able to go, or I forgot why I set my alarm for that time and snoozed it too much until I realized in a panic why it was going off! I have planned for an hour extra time and still been late (because I ended up hitting traffic or something). It is not lack of care or effort. If I say I care, I'm not fucking lying. And if I make a plan with you, it's because I love you enough to deal with the stress of trying to corral my brain and enough to accept the drain of energy it takes to go out (for so many reasons, not the least of which is my needs-repair car and the expense of gas) and/or give you my full focus. I am really fucking careful with how I plan my time.

*I mean, I'm sure there are some uncaring disabled people who like inconveniencing others and just don't value the time of others, but I've never met any. I haven't met many non-disabled people like that either. I think my pile of oddities scares off most of the people who are uncaring.

I'm not calling these truths, just musings. As such they could be totally wrong, so don't hesitate to disagree!

When you have only had shitty friends, you don't get a chance to learn all the friendship skills, because a friendship can't go beyond the most skilled one in it (unless you mutually work on it).  So if you are a level 2 with only level 1 friends, you can't move to level 3. If you're a level 1 with level 1 friends, you could both move to level 2 if you both decided to build that skill. Some of friendship is about intention, but a lot of it is about experience.

I think that people are composed of their experiences (and don't have much power over what those experiences are) so all you can really do is seek people who are similar to you in level, want to grow in friendship, and aren't so privileged or prejudiced that they can't see you as a person - and hope you get lucky. This is obviously easier if you are in a category that isn't routinely dehumanized and othered. Many more people are willing to invest in you when your looks and identity are something they feel comfortable with. Just from my relatively privileged experience, it was SO much easier to find friends when I was thinner and identified as a monogamous straight cis person. Also I am beyond lucky/privileged in the fact that I got to go to therapy for two and a half years, and got plenty of time to write and learn how to hone my communication, and more than anything else I was able to find people who were on my level but ready to move to the next and willing to do so with me. You can't create friendship skills without time, energy, and people to teach you and/or practice with. So, if you have few friendship skills it doesn't actually say that much about you as a person, necessarily. I think it only matters how you react to a chance to learn a new friendship skill.

I see four levels of friendship experience.

1) spending time together (not sharing deeply) in fun.
Most people exist at this level of friendship; at this stage a very close friend is one with whom you spend time with regularly or at length. At this stage, to feel close you have to be in-person and get things like smiles, laughter, hugs, overlapping energy, silliness, and play. You need (nearly) all interactions to feel good, because the only bad-feeling things that nourish a person involve sharing deeply.  If something feels bad about spending time with a person, they no longer count as a friend, because they're not doing the things that you consider to be friendship (sharing fun time).

2) giving emotional support/listening.
This next step often still requires spending a lot of time together for closeness, because people in the first stages of vulnerability often need the immediate feedback of in-person or real-time communication. Saying something vulnerable and then waiting is often much harder than saying something vulnerable and having immediate response.  For people in this stage, fun is still important, but it is also important to be able to express your negative feelings and have them held safely. People in the first stage can do this rarely if someone in massive crisis, but more often and they're gone; people in the 2nd stage consider supporting each other emotionally to be a vital part of friendship. I dunno if this is true for others, but when I was in this stage, I had a very hard time balancing my support for others with my own needs. It was like receiving support was so important to me that I imagined it as just as vital for everyone else, and I couldn't manage my own boundaries because it seemed so terrible to ever say no to a support need. This got me into trouble a lot.

3) giving feedback in a way that sparks new self-understanding; inspiring each other.
In this stage, spending time together for fun and support has decreased in importance.  I think that a person has to receive a certain amount of support for a certain length of time in order to move to this stage. I think ideally, your parents would give you enough support in your childhood that you could go into adulthood in this stage of friendship, but I've never seen that happen. The people I have seen in this stage at early adulthood had unusually supportive friend relationships early. For me, I got to this stage through the unbelievably kind and generous and faithful love of my LJ friends throughout the time I was working through childhood sexual abuse. Support is no longer a strong need for me, because I once hit that critical level. I think it is possible for people who have not yet hit that level to still very much value feedback that leads to new self-understanding, but I consider the level marker to be when it becomes more important than emotional support. At that point, you seek different friends and different kinds of interactions. Instead of seeking comfort first, you seek friendships that push you out of your comfort zone. You have a new set of goals in friendship. Support and spending time is of course still a need and important, but it's not primary. It becomes more important to be able to learn from and about each other.

4) challenging each other and responding positively; mutual accountability.
This may not be the final level but it is the deepest and most intense one I have witnessed. This is when not only do you value each other's feedback, but you hold each other accountable to the values that you have decided are important (not necessarily the same ones). For instance, Kylei values a broad sense of community and I do not, so in this level of friendship I would pay attention to whether or not they were investing in broad community, and point out any way I could see that they could invest more. Likewise, I value creativity, and someone could check in on me to see if I was living up to my value and creating regularly, whether they valued that for themselves or not. This level requires a lot of time and energy as well as skills in self-awareness and observation of others.

( rambles... )

The qualities that are most vital are being good at consent, being good at staying emotionally present, and not radiating need. Consent is vital because any touch needs to be consensual and a cuddler needs to know how to navigate that and give someone safety. Being emotionally present and aware is necessary because that is the building block for being able to give cuddles that are emotionally nourishing as well as physically pleasant. Not being full of need is necessary because even if you are otherwise perfect, if you have great need you may unintentionally drain people with your presence unless they know how to guard against that, or you are amazingly good at putting it in a box for a time. (for people who are full of need, guess what would be great for them? a professional cuddler!)

1) A cuddler needs to be good at consent: good at noticing non-verbal "no"s and asking clarifying, specific questions such as, "is there any part of your body that you would like me to avoid touching? Is there any particular kind of touch that you do not like?" and things like "would you like to be spooned? would you like me to stroke your arms? do you want me to play with your hair?"
2) A cuddler needs to not be touch-starved or affection-hungry. If they go into a session without their own tanks full, it is quite possible that their touch will drain the client rather than nourish them.
3) A cuddler needs to be good at boundaries. They need to be able to state their own comfort level and to be willing and able to say no and perhaps end the session if the client is not listening to those statements and honoring them.
4) A cuddler needs to have calm, settled energy about them, so that the cuddles they give will be relaxing and they won't transfer any stress to the client.
5) A cuddler needs to be comfortable with other people's emotions, able to listen, care, and hold space without getting swept along.
6) A (professional) cuddler needs to be good at separating sexual touch from affectionate touch, so that they can both offer touch with no sexual energy and they can read when a client is not being platonic and set boundaries accordingly.
7) A cuddler needs to be good at paying attention and good at reading people's reactions, so that they can tell how to adjust their touch according to what would be the most nourishing for the client.
8) A cuddler needs to be very comfortable with cuddling, so that they don't feel self-conscious and make their client feel awkward and uncomfortable about receiving their touch. They need to have a level of confidence and willingness to change something that is not working for the client.

Only the last one is really about physical aspects. The rest is all mental! Not all of it is stuff you can control -- obviously people don't have a lot of control over how much they need or how calm they are or even how emotionally present they are (some disabilities can break you out of being present no matter how hard you try). Some of this is skill, and some of it is just qualities that you might have or you might not, and some is a combination.

I've been thinking about cuddling for a living since I found out that there is a service near where I live that is hiring. I posted on facebook asking people if they'd be interested or knew others who would be. Some said yes and some said "yes I want cuddles but I wouldn't pay for them" and I found myself getting really offended and upset about it. Even after working it out logically (I do understand that reaction and don't need it explained) it's still upsetting. It feels like people are saying my skills aren't valuable or worth me being able to live on, which really is something I get constantly about everything I do (except stats).

People do this about every skill that is emotional or artistic in nature. Sure, it is rewarding to make art or teach people emotional skills, etc. But it takes energy! no one has an endless supply of that. Further, energy spent on emotional/artistic work means less energy for making money. Money is a thing that can get me food and shelter. If you don't think my emotional/artistic work is real enough work to earn me food and shelter then no, I don't want to give it to you. And when I have put hundreds of hours into building my skills, no, it's not the same as some random person who has never worked on it. It is really unlikely that any random person can give the cuddles I do. Affection or connection doesn't cut it; this is a skill. I have worked on these skills consciously for many years on many people. Cuddle skills are not common and even the sweetest and most loving people often have very low cuddle skills.

I am really fucking good at cuddling. I imagine that most people who are uncomfortable with the idea of paying for cuddles have in their mind the idea that cuddles are automatically mutual. They aren't. There are four kinds of cuddles as I see it - giving, receiving, sharing, and passive.

• Giving (one-way) - this is where you are actively giving touch, such as stroking someone's hair or rubbing their back, and they aren't actively touching you, nor is there any plan for them to.


• Receiving (one-way) - this is where you are not actively touching the other person while they are giving you touch, and there is no plan for you to give them touch.


• Sharing (mutual) - this is where you and another person are engaged in mutually active and emotionally-present touch, such as both stroking each other's backs while lying together, or mouth-kissing, or hugging, or holding hands. It is only sharing touch if you are both actively, presently, and deliberately giving: it is quite common for one person to give a hug and the other receive it - that may look like sharing but it isn't.


• Passive (can be mutual or one-way) - this is where you are touching the other person, but in an absent-minded or inactive way. An example would be leaning against someone while you both watch a show, or hugging while neither of you are focused on it.

If you have never just received without giving, you can't imagine how rejuvenating it is*. Shared cuddles are energizing but just receiving is like three times that intense. And it takes at least three times as much energy to just give: it's a huge investment of energy to just give fully-present cuddles, which is why I don't often do it for long stretches of time. I often brush Topaz' hair for hours on end because that is a less-present kind of giving that doesn't take much of my energy yet energizes them a lot. It's kinda halfway between passive and giving, because I shift in and out of being fully present in what I am doing (we're usually watching a show during this).

With people who do not give in cuddles for whatever reason, I only give if I am in a place where I can handle that much drain, or if I feel confident enough in their honesty & ability of response to request something that will help refill me. Mostly people are willing to give back, they just don't know how, because this is a learned skill. Sometimes I will have only passive cuddles with a person because that is something I can usually do without drain.

I probably seem arrogant, and I'm afraid someone's gonna be like "actually your cuddles stink" but I think that's an illogical fear. Though I think maybe I suck at cuddling Heather partly because I have been lazy the last few times we've hung out and partly because I don't think I've ever made them sigh in contentment, and after braggin on myself I'm also looking at all my cuddles given and thinking about my flaws.

I came up with a list of essential qualities for being good at cuddling, but I'm going to post that friends-locked because I sent it to the two places I applied to and I want to keep it under wraps until I get responses. If you're reading and you don't have an LJ, message me and I'll email it to you.

*I am sure that not all of this is true for all people, especially those who are not nourished by touch (less common, but certainly existing). Please take this with a grain of salt - I phrased it boldly because I feel strongly, not because I really think it is true for all people.

I can't bear selfishness, especially when it kills empathy. If you can't care about someone else's feelings when you are angry at them or hurt by them, what good is your love? NONE. it is USELESS. And I know that sometimes I am selfish like this, but I try my best not to be and when I fuck it up and don't keep compassion present, I apologize and do my best to help heal any hurt I have caused. That's what I ask from others. I'm not sure if selfishness should be a dealbreaker, or how many times it takes to decide that it's not just occasional accidents but the general way of handling things.

Doing stuff for other people that makes you feel good is not a test of love, not remotely. You can be the most romantic, gift-giving, affectionate-words-using, cuddly, playful, service-giving person when you're happy, but if you turn into an attacking beast when you're upset, that means you are NOT LOVING, you just like the reactions your niceness gives. Love doesn't vanish when anger or hurt happens. Selfish giving does vanish. You can tell how much someone loves you by how well they treat you when they are upset with you.

------

all white people are racist. not all white people are bigoted. racism is a system you are born into. bigotry is an attitude you can choose.

I'm using the sociological definition of racism as an institutionalized system of inequality. Individual acts of bigotry against white people are not called racism because they aren't something that exists in a nation-wide or world-wide way, enforced by laws and educational systems and media etc. Bigotry based on your skin is painful and horrible to experience no matter who you are. But if it was racism, a systemic problem, then every white person you know would have a similar set of daily experiences. People hating you for who you are is bigotry, prejudice- it only becomes oppression if it is something that no one in your group can escape. If I try to make it as simple as possible, bigotry is an individual problem which can be escaped by avoiding those individuals who are bigoted. Racism is a social system which cannot be escaped because you can't avoid the laws and other forms of institutional inequality like educational systems. Sometimes white people suffer under bigotry, but white people never have to deal with racism, at least not in the US.

When I suspect that someone wants something, I usually ask them, "do you want [this thing]?" and it used to be that if they said "I don't know" I would ask more questions to help them figure it out. Somehow within the last month I have stopped doing that second part. I just drop it or tell them "think about it and let me know when you figure it out." I feel like this is good progress for me, since it is vital to me to check in when I think of it (and can) but if they aren't participating enough to figure out their desires when deliberately prompted, then me continuing to poke them more is me taking responsibility for their self-awareness. It feels weird to leave that for them, but really freeing. I didn't realize how much effort it took, or how often I did it. I think somehow I realized that I now am surrounded by people who mostly won't blame me if they don't get what they want from me (when they didn't ask).

I'm happy to help people figure out what they want if they initiate the process* or ask me to do so (if I can), but when I do it otherwise it's usually because I expect them to punish me if I don't anticipate their needs and desires. This isn't an illogical fear, because to most people this is normal and tolerable behavior. But regardless of the logic, I do not want to be motivated by fear, and my risk is the smallest it has ever been. So I really hope that this new lack of fear continues. I think it will, unless I get a string of negative results for not doing that work. But so far no one has scolded me or pouted at me or pulled away from me.

*such as responding to my question about what they want with "I don't know, here are the factors I am weighing, help?"

Question from a friend: ...our culture actually encourages thoughtlessness and poor self-awareness and poor other- awareness. And yet, you have honed (and continue to grow) these skills better than anyone I've ever known. Did anything set you on that path? Was it just innate? A combination of things?

My self-awareness began with the church, I think. I went to a revival when I was 11 and promised God I wouldn't lie or steal any more (which I had done a lot before then). I stopped, and through monitoring my own actions I became aware of what led to them, slowly over time. But it also stalled out for a while because I shut down to everyone and everything to survive living with my parents and living in a city full of terrible painful energy. Later I started LJing and met Hannah, whose wonderful prying questions helped me open up to myself and others. When I started going to therapy for the sexual abuse I experienced as a child, I became self-aware more acutely and I became aware of others in a deep way.

I realized that every hurtful action came from a hurt person, and that people didn't hurt you because they were just nasty people but because their experiences led them to think that their behavior was an appropriate response. It wasn't until I was with Kylei that I realized that most of the time, people don't realize the pain they are causing. Kylei and I loved each other so deeply and yet often caused each other terrible pain, never intentionally. I came to understand that my reasoning is just my point of view and that another person could have a positive intention for an action even when it seems to me like there could only possibly be negative intentions.

The biggest help for me with learning other-awareness is asking questions instead of deciding for myself what someone's motives are. Nowadays forgetting to check is the outlier, but it still happens. The biggest help for me with self-awareness is writing often and having at least one chunk of alone time per week. Self-awareness is a privilege, because it takes free time (at least for me) and free time is a privilege. Another thing that helps HUGELY is people asking meaningful prying questions, which is part of why I take them as a gift.

And reading people's introspection helps a great deal with both self- and other- awareness, because I realize new perspectives that others have and I realize my own perspective, in contrast. It helps me to notice the air I'm breathing, so to speak, to notice my ways and thus be able to engage with them deliberately rather than through habit. This is a huge part of my love for LJ.

Also, I think there is a part of my awareness that comes from my neuro-type; I see things in pieces rather than as a whole, especially people. So I notice small shifts that signal meaning, more often than I would if I was considering the whole. And lastly, part of it is a reaction to trauma. As a kid I learned how to avoid pain by paying close attention to my parents' moods and reacting accordingly. This is some intense training in reading emotion, in being aware of others. The harder to learn has definitely been self-awareness, for me.

I use a scale of desire when I am negotiating plans. Here are the meanings I assign to the numbers:

+5: it would make my life awesome! Every time I thought about it afterward it would make me feel happy, forever!
+4: it would make my week! I'd be thrilled!
+3: exciting! I'm invested in making this happen.
+2: sounds nice, I might be willing to put forth some effort for it.
+1: I like the idea, but I'm not at all invested in it and don't want to put forth effort.
0: I either have no preference or equal and opposite preferences.
-1: I dislike the idea, but not enough to actively avoid it.
-2: the idea is bothersome and I might put forth some effort to avoid it.
-3: the idea makes me quite uncomfortable and I am going to avoid it if at all possible.
-4: if this happened it would ruin my whole week and make me quite unhappy.
-5: if this happened it would ruin my life and make me miserable thinking about it for ever.

Using this scale, please tell me frankly:
[Poll #1978501]

Also, it would help me if some people would fill out my custom order form, so I can both get inspiration and notice any issues. Filling this out does not obligate you to anything! If you don't actually want it and are just offering sample data, please put "sample data" in that first box :) If you want it and can't afford it, please note that to me also.

Do not assume that "everyone knows" that this is the "right way" to show love. NO. Some people believe giving space is the kindest thing to do, but for other people that can feel like abandonment. Some people believe that talking it out immediately is the most loving act, whereas for people who need silence in order to figure out their feelings, that can shatter their thoughts and harm their ability to communicate. Some people believe that cleaning for someone else is a kind act of love, but for others that can feel like a violation of their space and an insult to the way they manage their things. It is NEVER APPROPRIATE TO ASSUME that a person knows the way you want to be loved, or that they can in fact do the thing that will make you feel loved. Or vice versa -- you cannot assume that you know the right way to love someone else. This includes everything everything everything (except abuse).

I'm gonna quote myself with some bits added:
We can't pre-negotiate all our expectations (because most of them are subconscious!), but we can recognize when we have an expectation that has not been agreed on and then negotiate it without resentment for past lack-of-meeting that expectation. That means when your feelings are hurt by them acting in a way other than what you expected, asking yourself, "did this person agree to act this way for me?" and if the answer is no, saying to your person, "this is a thing I want in relationships. Are you comfortable with me relying on you to do this thing, and expecting it?" if they say yes, fantastic! then you discuss what that looks like and how you can both make sure it happens, and what to do if it doesn't. If they say "no," you need to examine within yourself and decide if that is something you can be okay without in that relationship. If it is, adjust your feelings, and perhaps look for that need to be met elsewhere. If it is not, you need to end the relationship*. Plain and fucking simple. It is NOT appropriate to stay in the relationship and hope that they will change their mind or start doing that thing you want or become okay with aspects of you that they currently judge -- that is disrespectful and pressuring at best, and it blocks off both people from potential healthy positive relationships.

In short, if you want to expect something, ask if it is okay for you to expect it. Otherwise don't expect it! To expect something without checking if it is okay is not consensual and can even be coercive.

I have this problem too, and if I ever get upset at you specifically about something that you didn't consent for me to expect, just point it out to me and I will check myself. If I do it, that doesn't mean I think it is appropriate! it just means that this thought pattern has a hold on me as well.

All conflict is intimacy. It is a genuine, exposing kind of interaction. This is why people say that hate and love are two sides of the same coin, and the trope of falling in love with the antagonist exists. This is why if you're constantly in disagreements with someone (like a coworker or classmate), you may feel closer to them than to strangers, even though you might dislike them at the same time. And of course, it's why "hate sex" or "makeup sex" is considered hot. This is why little kids will annoy the shit out of you and laugh with glee. It's not that they want to make you unhappy, it's that they want to be close and conflict intimacy through poking or noises or whatever is the easiest and (as long as they trust you not to be abusive) lowest risk form of intimacy. If someone grimaces at your annoying behavior, it doesn't mean they dislike you, and you get to feel a little closer through that interaction. If someone grimaces at your attempt to hug them, or looks away from your smile at them, it's hard not to feel that they dislike you, so that is a higher risk. I feel tolerant of people who attempt to bond with me through annoying me, but I don't like it and I will usually try to push them to ask for what they really want. With little kids it's usually physical play or cuddling, with adults it's usually focused attention.

People who never learned non-conflict intimacy can grow up into people who constantly make sharp jokes and tease rudely. Sometimes they're actually mean-spirited but I think most of the time they don't know how to feel connected any other way. I think this is also part of the reason that people fall in love with mean, selfish people: they are a huge source of conflict, and if that is the only way you know to be intimate, a relationship without conflict would be one without intimacy as well, so it seems 'boring.' Really it's that the skills for non-conflict intimacy are so much more work and take more risk because you have to learn who you really are, and then share that, which means a potential blow doesn't glance off your shell, but hits home.

There's different varieties of conflict intimacy of course- the simple bratty kind that usually isn't consensual and can't mature, the unresolved kind (with anyone whom you can't or won't work it out with) that doesn't mature, and then the constructive kind, which matures through resolution into a deeper understanding of the other person. That last kind is obviously my favorite. Recently there was a conflict between Roger and Heather, and another between Kei-Won-Tia and Zawn, and all the people involved used it constructively and because they shared the process with me, not only are they (potentially) closer, I feel closer to each of them through empathizing with their feelings and learning about them through their reactions.

Constructive conflict intimacy takes a lot of energy though; if there isn't enough non-conflict intimacy then you'll get worn out and eventually not have enough energy to engage, and then your conflicts will be unresolved and your intimacy will stop being so nourishing. This happened with me and Kylei when we were both depressed and being crap at self-care, and neither of us realized it was happening because we had always had a lot of conflict, but we had also always had a lot of non-conflict intimacy through mindful touch and silliness/play. When our non-conflict intimacy stopped happening, we still felt intimate but it didn't feel good, and we didn't really understand why. Eventually we got to a point where we had endless unresolved conflict and even though we were still very much in love, it was terribly damaging for us to be together. Since then I've learned that conflict intimacy sometimes needs to be avoided for a little while and other intimacy needs to be used. So if Topaz and I are having lots of hard conversations, usually we'll have a little down time with casual cuddles while watching a show and then we'll have focused mindful touch while silent. I always want to get all the hard stuff over with so it can be very hard for me to put a conflict on pause but if I didn't learn to do that I'd be making energy deficits that were much harder to fill back up.

So I missed this presentation at TBC 2012, and it is a testament to my ADD-PI that I've been intending to watch it since then but haven't gotten around to it until today. I resonated so strongly with it. In case you don't watch it (yet), let me just give you this: a metamour is someone with whom you share a common connection. In other words, the friend of your friend or the lover of your lover.

For me, poly has been about developing metamour relationships probably as much as it has been about being open to simultaneous romantic relationships. And while I don't always seek the additional romance, I have ALWAYS valued and craved metamour relationships. For me, that is the essence of a tribe. If I care about you, I care about whoever is important to you. I want to know them. I want to be bonded with them to the extent that it is possible. And a lot of my important relationships were created as metamour connections: Adi (mutual lover), Heather (mutual lover), Camellia (mutual friend), Aurilion (mutual friend), Ashe (mutual friend), Kylei (mutual community), Hannah (mutual community), Meliae (mutual community), Laura (mutual friend). And the whole reason I began investing was for the sake of the person or community that brought us together -- it wasn't me seeking out that person in particular, it was me valuing the person/thing between us enough to want to invest the time to know the person for themselves. When I tell you I love you, it flows one step further to your people. Even if I feel I have nothing in common with the person you love, I want to build whatever small thing might be possible with them (and I hope for more). And I want your love for me to flow over to the people I love and for you to try to build with them. I feel that I cannot adequately understand you unless I understand your people at least on a basic level.

Not only do I value and seek out these relationships, but I feel a lack and a loss when they do not exist, ESPECIALLY when I feel that two people would really enjoy each other. I get very nervous about trying again when I have encouraged metamour relationships with someone and they have failed, but I never stop wanting to do it even if I stop being brave enough to try. I'm a friendship-matchmaker and I really do just want to smoosh everyone together (in a consensual way). It makes me feel sad and frustrated when people's expectations, assumptions, or situations get in the way but if they could just get over that initial hump they'd both have their lives enriched.

I feel conflicted when I don't know how to talk to a metamour; it just now occurred to me that the metamour of my metamour is my friend, heh, so I could just ask my friend how to connect with their friend. I've done this a little with Kei-Won-Tia because we both value this metamour-nurturing but it never occurred to me to try it in general until just now. Let me just say, if I have expressed love to you and there is a person you love whom I don't have an independent connection with, please do offer whatever you know to help us connect (if that is a thing you would like to happen, obv).

If you have a forceful personality (like me), tend to get very exuberant about things you want, and/or get very down about your disappointments, it can be difficult to keep these tendencies from running over other people's needs, especially if those people are invested in your happiness. Note: if you tend to get your way without negotiating, or if you ever assume that someone should do something that you want, you may be running over other people's needs. My examples are sex but this applies to all interactions; stuff like going to an event, making a shift in your relationship, etc.

My number one suggestion is, if it is something you really want, make a mental habit to double-check when you get your way. This can happen first in your head -- yay they said yes! this means time to double-check. Do they seem as excited as I am about it? If yes, great, move forward! If they are ANY less excited than me, look at how I asked*, look at their body language, look at their phrasing. If it all matches up with go-time**, move forward. If not, open up the chance for them to decline*** by saying something like "you seem a little hesitant, is there something else you want to do right now?" or "what are you feeling?" or even "are you sure? we could always do [alternate choice]!" (that last one you need to say with happiness for it to be useful). If you discuss it and don't end up feeling like they are sure they want it, don't do it. Better to avoid an experience that turns out to be unwanted, even if that sometimes means you mistakenly miss out on an experience that was wanted.

And, frankly, better to only do things when people clearly state that they want it than to have murky communication as the default mode. I know some people would not be able to have sex in this case, but it's not your job to make sure other people have sex, it's your job to make sure you never violate someone's boundaries. If someone wants to have sex but is hesitant about the kind/boundaries/etc, that can be negotiated, but if you want to make sure you don't violate them, you can't have sex with them if they are unsure that they want it to begin with.

*did you ask with an easy way for them to decline? For example, did you say "can we get sexy?/ will you go to this party with me?" or "I'd love to have sex with you tonight / I'd love if you came to this party." The first is a yes/no and it is REALLY hard for many people to give a flat no. So anything that is not a yes or other excited affirmative, treat it as a no. The second is better, in my experience, because people can share their own feelings in return, instead of being pushed into having to do it or say no. Sideways-no is much easier for most people to say.

**go-time body language and phrasing differs for everyone, but some things that in my experience are clear signs of reluctance (thus NOT go-time) are closed-off body (arms or legs crossed, leaning away, toes or shoulders or face pointed away from you, physical barriers like knees or pillows in the way, not making eye contact) or answers like "okay" or "sure" instead of yes/yeah. If you're not good at noting body language, practice and double-check with words, or just use words.

***the more chances you give someone to decline, the more sure you can be that they want what you want.

More in-depth explanation on how to be careful with sexual consent specifically.

I'm often taken as judgmental, yet I consider myself one of the least judgmental* people I know. I think this is because of the connection between dislike/discomfort and judgement. For most, the first leads to the second with almost no separation. "I don't like that style of relationship so it's bad and people who live it are bad. I don't like that sex act so it's bad and people who do it are bad. I don't like that school so it's bad and the people who go there are lesser." Etc. But it is possible to separate one's dislike from judgement; it's just a hard habit to develop.

When one's dislike doesn't line up with a social judgement, it is easier for people to take words at face value. If I say cauliflower is gross and I don't want it anywhere near me, and people around me like cauliflower, they may feel disagreement with me or disappointment that we do not share a like for this kind of food, but they probably won't assume that I think they are a bad person for liking cauliflower. But if I express the same sentiment about scat play and they engage in that, they may assume that I do think they are a bad person for liking that, because my dislike** lines up with a social judgement against less common forms of bodily interactions.

I've learned that when I have a dislike that lines up with a social judgement, it may actually be an expression of that social judgement and not my own feelings at all, and I need to check. I used to think it was gross for some people to have armpit hair, and it wasn't until I consciously separated the social judgement I had absorbed from my actual thoughts that I realized I like it on everybody. I used to think that buying any non-necessity as a poor person was irresponsible and wrong, until I consciously separated it from the social judgement I had absorbed and realized that it was oppressive to say that only the wealthy deserve any fun or rest.

This also affects how I interpret other people's words. Sometimes someone will say something that initially sounds to me like they are judging me; but if I trust the person, then instead of taking that next step and assuming that the expression equals a judgement, I will ask them to rephrase or clarify, and if I am still unsure, I will say, "it sounds to me like you are judging me in this way, is that true?" 99% of the time, I am misinterpreting. I know how distant and unloved I used to feel when I just absorbed 'judgements' without checking to see if that is what they were and I would have ended relationships that I now cherish if I hadn't consciously worked on this skill.

So if I ever say to you something like "I feel like you are saying I am a shitty person for doing this thing," I'm not assuming you are actually saying that, or that it is even a possibility within your character. I am not making ANY assumptions as to your intent or true meaning. I'm just expressing my visceral reaction and opening the possibility of ending my discomfort.

There are a few things I judge: supporting oppressions, selfishness, violating consent. If I say that I judge something you do as bad, that does NOT mean I am judging YOU as bad. I don't speak up in order to try to help you be a 'better' person; that would be a waste of our time because you have to do that on your own. I speak up because for me, not objecting*** to the things I judge as wrong would be a violation of my ethics. My fight is with memes; you're just a bystander.

*if I do not state a judgement in the most blunt way possible, you can safely assume I am not making one.
**my first response is ick. But if I had a lover who was into it, I'd be down to try it, at least.
***which I do sometimes, because I haven't infinite time or energy.

A friend recently asked what I do if I feel insecure that my person does not love me and is going to leave, and reassurances don't help. In answering I realized my method might be helpful to others too, so I'm sharing it. If it doesn't resonate for you, throw it out.

My first step is to ask myself, "is there something they did that is making me feel rejected/forgotten/hurt?" if yes, I discuss that thing with the person: I ask them to explain the reason behind their action, because without explanation I may think the reason is lack of love. When they explain, I choose to accept their reason as the whole truth. If their actions are not the issue, or if I still feel bad, I ask myself,
"have I tried all my methods of self-care?" if no, I do whatever I can* (it is important that this step comes before the next one!), and if the feeling is still there I ask myself,
"how could this person make me feel more loved?" and then ask my person to do one of a handful of specific things** that would help me feel loved. If they do not want to do or do not feel capable of doing any of them, then I ask myself,
"is this a pattern or just a moment?" and if I can think back and realize that in another moment like this my person has made me feel loved, I can use that memory to make myself feel more loved (which is why I keep a log of love-memories!).

If on the other hand, this person does not ever respond to direct requests with taking loving action, I take a step back from the relationship. A person who is rarely/never capable/willing to make me feel loved is not a person who is safe for me to invest in; I have a finite amount of energy and I must invest it where I can create a mutually beneficial dynamic. Showing care in a way that translates to the other person as love is important; feelings without actions are not nourishing for the people being 'felt' about. If I want to be healthy and able to connect and give, I must be willing to press pause or stop on a relationship that is not nourishing me. I completely support someone pausing or stopping a relationship with me as well, and would welcome them right back if we got to a point where we could be mutually nourishing again.

And for me, if all of those immediate issues have been fulfilled and I still feel worried, I consider long-term issues, like chemical depression or a lack of daily investment in knowing and appreciating myself. Sometimes I need to have a self-date (or invest more in myself in general) and it isn't until I start feeling this way that I realize I have not been paying attention to myself.

* my "rescue remedy" self-care includes making sure I have eaten (my mood drops drastically when I haven't eaten in 5+ hours), watching a silly show, drinking coffee/tea, drinking plenty of water, and/or laying down and focusing on my breathing. If it's a mild bad feeling, going out to nature or to get coffee helps, but that also takes significant energy so it is not always possible.
** my specific "rescue remedy" care-from-others are giving me a foot rub, going out just to get me a latte and bringing it to me (or otherwise going out of their way for me), cuddling and kissing me while fully present, looking me in the eye and telling me what they value about me, lightly petting me from neck to ankle, and taking me out to nature.

In relationships, I consider the only appropriate unnegotiated expectation to be this: that the other person will not actively, deliberately hurt you. Everything else -- yes, EVERYTHING -- needs to be negotiated. We can't just expect that other people will be kind to us -- because we may define kindness by different actions than what another person would. For instance, my default expectation was once that if someone loved me and we were having an argument, they would not leave the room. It seemed like the only possible way to handle that situation lovingly was to stay and help both people feel better as fast as possible. However, that was because I was expecting everyone to think and process the way I do. Once I learned that some people honestly cannot think constructively unless they have a break to just be alone, I realized that it could be just as loving to take a break from the argument (even though that felt initially bad to me, it was better overall). Another example is touch during angry discussion -- I loathe it, because I associate it with physical attacks, so I perceived it as a bad thing to do to other people, but for Kylei it is a soothing reassurance. In my attempt to be loving and respectful I was avoiding doing the very thing that would have helped Kylei most. This is why just expecting people to "be loving" DOES NOT WORK. We do not all have the same list under "loving behavior." Expecting someone to know how to react to your emotions or expecting them to provide the amount of time you want or show love in the way that you want -- those are completely inappropriate unless they have been negotiated and agreed on.

We can't pre-negotiate all our expectations (because most of them are subconscious!), but we can recognize when we have an expectation that has not been agreed on and then negotiate it without resentment for past lack-of-meeting that expectation. That means saying to your person, "this is a thing I want in relationships. Are you comfortable with me relying on you to do this thing, and expecting it?" if they say yes, fantastic! then you discuss what that looks like and how you can both make sure it happens, and what to do if it doesn't. If they say "no," you need to examine within yourself and decide if that is something you can be okay without in that relationship. If it is, adjust your feelings, and perhaps look for that need to be met elsewhere. If it is not, you need to end the relationship*. Plain and fucking simple. It is NOT appropriate to stay in the relationship and hope that they will change their mind or start doing that thing you want or become okay with aspects of you that they currently judge -- that is disrespectful and pressuring at best, and it blocks off both people from potential healthy positive relationships. (relationships that have blocked off the option to break up because they are abusive are not what I'm discussing here -- ending them is a totally different process)

There seems to be this intense fear of ending relationships; not even a fear of how the other person will take it, but a fear of the ending itself. I can understand that there are real reasons for that fear, but it's understood and accepted in all the social groups I've seen that ending relationships is to be avoided at all costs -- literally, ALL costs. I don't think this fear is even questioned, and I think it really needs to be. When you put off ending the relationship, all those problems fester into a giant gangrenous sore so when you finally do end it, there is hatred and bitterness and harm everywhere. Ending a relationship does not mean that there is no longer love between you: it means that there is no longer more benefit than cost. If a relationship is not bringing good things, it has no reason to exist, and ending it opens up space for good things to come into BOTH people's lives. It is not a selfish act to end an unproductive relationship; it is being kind to oneself, being respectful of the other person's inability to meet your needs or vice versa, and being kind to other relationships which will not be postponed or diminished by a dying relationship, or experience difficulty due to toxicity created by the dying relationship. (every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end)

Think of an unmet-needs/desires relationship as an exhausted plot of land which does not produce fruit. Sometimes (often, in my life) ending a relationship lets the connection lie fallow, which rejuvenates it and allows for a wonderful, productive relationship in the future. My only regrets about the endings I made is that I did not make them sooner. So going forward, I am trying to develop a habit of regularly checking on them; looking at how much it's costing and how much it's benefiting me. If there's a deficit, then I need to discuss expectations and change either the way things are happening (if the other person wants that too) or change the nature of the relationship.

*"Ending a relationship" often has connotations of completely cutting someone out of your life. When I say end, I don't mean end the connection, I mean end the relationship: that particular method of relating. For example, ending one's romantic relationship with a person doesn't necessarily mean you have also ended your friendship, or your co-parenting, or your sex connection, etc.