Learning To Choose Wisely

I had a dream last night about being abandoned at a middle-of-nowhere gas station by a girl who was supposed to be my closest friend.

Unfortunately, it's a scenario that could have easily happened in real life- especially if I was still close with the girl in question. She was someone I was extremely close to in my teenage years, a girl who made me feel accepted, even loved- before she screwed me over the first time she found a boyfriend. Suddenly she wanted nothing to do with me or her other friends. Her boyfriend didn't like her friends, and so she wasn't going to risk being dumped. She dumped all of her friends instead, including yours truly. But it didn't stop there- she didn't just dump us, but she and her new bf made it their new mission to bully us daily. Verbally and physically. It was a complete betrayal on her part.

And this isn't the only time a former "friend" has turned on me like a scorpion. I can recall at least 5 or 6 more people who used to be very close to me and used that to stab me in the back later.

Having that dream last night made me realize how often I choose the wrong kinds of people to be in my life. Once again, I blame my parents. I realize how cliched it is to blame your parents for everything that goes wrong in your life- but there's a grain of truth in every cliche. My parents were abusive and neglectful. I never learned to love myself or respect myself. My sense of self was discouraged from developing, and I have suffered for it ever since.

When you have been treated like you don't matter for the entirety of your life, you learn that you don't matter. You allow people to treat you any way they like, because well, you must deserve that. You tolerate the abuse, the manipulation, the cruel verbal jabs at your expense that are passed off thinly as "jokes". False friends also have a tendency to find humor in publicly humiliating you. They also feel free to use or "borrow" your things, as though asking for your permission is not needed (because obviously you don't matter). Every single behavior I have listed here are ways that I learned to be okay with because that's how I was treated by my parents.

I want to change the tolerance I have for people who just use and abuse, I don't want to be a doormat anymore, and I certainly don't want to repeat the cycle of choosing the wrong people in my life just because I hate myself. I will make it a point to set boundaries and I will not accept anyone in my life who can't treat me the way I treat others- with respect, kindness, and good intent.

Yeah That Happened

That awkward moment when your neighbor puts a giant Confederate flag on their porch and asks you how you like it.

HELLO MY NAME IS: Demisexual

I am a demisexual. I always have been. To be clear, in case you didn't read the above sign, demisexual is a sexual orientation in which someone feels sexual attraction only to people with whom they have an emotional bond.

I knew I was different, growing up around regularly sex-charged people. While my friends were swooning and lusting over celebrities, I would join in (in an attempt to look "normal") while internally wondering how they could be so attracted to someone they didn't even know. My friends would develop crushes on boys at school who they would pass daily in the hallway (the extent of their communication with one another). It baffled me. How could they be so attracted to someone they have never even spoken to?

Perhaps this stems from a problem with trust. I have a past full of abuse, so naturally I have trust issues, and find it difficult to want to be close to people who haven't proven themselves trustworthy in some way. I can look at a person and say if they are physically attractive or not (in the conventional sense), but I can tell you that I cannot be attracted sexually to a person that I don't have an intense emotional bond with.

By "intense", I mean history and connection. When I first met my current boyfriend, I thought of him as just another guy on the internet who wanted to talk to an approachable-looking girl. I chatted with him online several times, not feeling anything in particular for him. In time, I noticed that he was different from the other guys I had chatted with. He asked important, deep questions about me, my life, who I really was. And he really listened.

Eventually, I started to trust that this guy really wanted to know me, and not for some hidden selfish reason. He was a giving person, always checking with me to see if I was emotionally "okay" after telling him about my traumatic past. He seemed to care immensely about my well-being and never made me feel like I should go faster than what I was ready for. That counted for a lot in my book. Made me feel safe, like I could trust him not to push me into something. I started to trust him more and more, until eventually (about a year after meeting him) I started to feel romantic feelings for him.

A year! It took me a year to like the guy. And it took another year before I agreed to meet him in person. This guy waited two years for me. And when we met, he never pressured me. He figuratively held open a door, and let me decide if I wanted to enter it with him. And I did. That's how our relationship works- he holds the door open, and waits for me to decide to enter. Each door I enter into takes us to a deeper part of our relationship, and of course, a deeper trust. He understands my demisexuality and lets me go at my own pace.

Being demisexual is hard. It makes dating a disaster, and I get shunned by most people because I have to move as slow as a snail. But the wait is well worth it, because even though I am introverted, shy, sometimes difficult, and sometimes moody, I am also a loyal, loving, and extremely compassionate person who would do just about anything for someone she loves. Anyone who is patient and interested enough to hold open figurative doors will be glad they did in the long run. I am a person worth knowing.

Something Wicked This Way Comes?

What a strange feeling I have had lately.

It's like I know that something is going to end. Change is inevitable- no one can avoid it. Different people move in and out of our lives, and I like to think that they come when we need them, and leave when they have taught us what they came to teach. I believe that everything happens for a reason, as cliche as it sounds. Nothing is coincidence.

I don't want things to change, as far as the people in my life go. I love them all, they have been my anchors when bipolar has thrown me into a raging sea of emotion. They are the safe place I go to to feel loved. They encourage me, they support me, and they welcome me. That's the most important part. The feeling of being accepted and wanted is a feeling that every living creature needs to feel.

I am afraid of the change that I feel coming, yet at the same time, part of me hopes that it's a change for the better. I can't put my finger on what exactly will change. I know this post is vague and mysterious, but I can't be any more specific. Because I just don't know what is coming.

Here's to hoping it's a positive change.