Human After All

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Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about a recent comment that Graydancer left me:

Among other things, I would say find partners (or let your current partners know) what it is that you need from them – snuggling, connection, whatever. But in a threesome, everybody has a right to be satisfied, whatever that means. It may mean you only want to watch – or it may mean you need a hot double fisting while you’re spanking them and quoting Prospero’s speeches from the Tempest. But let them know, and talk about it afterwards (awkward though that may be) and resolve to do it better next time.

It nicely sums up a very fundamental thing I’ve been doing ‘wrong’ for quite a while that has been causing me a sizable amount of anxiety. Not only in threesomes, but in sex, relationships, and life in general: I don’t express myself enough. To be more specific - I don’t express my wants, needs, concerns or grievances enough.

Sometimes I do it plenty. When I’m drunk, or even a little tipsy, I start spilling confessions like proverbial guts. At times I can be happy-social-drunk, but more often than not I’m angsty-horny-ARGH drunk. I bitch, whine, and moan. I cry. I petulantly knock empty beer bottles over. I kick walls. I get online and start pouring my heart out to my close friends on chat or email. I text hook-up buddies (or potential hook-ups) and hit on them ferociously. (Yes, only via text. I used to actually hit on them but I’ve recently realized that text is way less scary.)

Need a demo? Here’s a couple examples pulled from the last few days:

Wilhelmina [@Atlantean via SMS]: I really want to either suck you off or bite you really hard

Wilhelmina [@Atlantean via SMS]: Fuck, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have sent that. But it was either that, or break more things. If you want me to leave you alone you should just tell me so and I will.

And another:

Wilhelmina [@Christopher via chat]: i’m just emotional and i’m taking advantage of my own intoxication to tell you these things when it’s against my better judgement

Wilhelmina [@Christopher via chat]:  you’re a beautiful, amazing person. i just love you so much and i keep thinking about you. why do i keep thinking about you?! i don’t know. you’re just one person and you’re not perfect

Wilhelmina [@Christopher via chat]: i don’t understand why i get like this when i drink too much. i either need to get fucked really hard or cry really hard. i really don’t understand it.

…And so it goes on.

I mean, not only is it an annoying and embarassing process for me to go through, but it’s probably even more annoying for the other people involved.

All this time I’ve attributed my outbursts to the fact that I’m overly emotional and can’t be ‘detached’ or ‘unfeeling’ enough. Because it’s not like I only get these feelings when I’m drunk. I have them all the time – I’m just in control of myself enough to not express them.

Often, I don’t even think I ‘should’ be having said feelings at all. I ‘shouldn’t’ be attracted to and hitting on such-and-such person because they probably aren’t attracted to me and my attentions are unwanted. I ‘shouldn’t’ need snuggling and affection from the Emperor and his gf during a threesome, because I’m privileged enough to actually be participating in a threesome with them in the first place and I shouldn’t ask any more from them. I ‘shouldn’t’ be jealous. I ‘shouldn’t’ be in love with whoever because they’re taken/gay/leaving/unavailable/whatever.

Or: I ‘shouldn’t’ want/feel anything because my wants and feelings are not as important as my loved ones’. I ‘shouldn’t’ want/feel anything because my wants and feelings are not as important as anyone’s.

(Inferiority complex? I has it. Self-esteem issues? Got those too. Dependent personality disorder? Well, maybe, but self-diagnoses aren’t really trustworthy, like, at all. Doesn’t help that all the websites I go to contradict each other when they describe it.)

Anyway – Christopher recently said something that made me think I was approaching my ‘overemotion’ in the wrong way:

Christopher: for you, i think [being drunk] is a release of the anger/frustrations that you bottle up on a daily basis, so you go into overdrive to express (and thus expel) the negative emotions

Christopher: 1) human beings are made to have feelings – feelings are built into us for very good reasons. 2) humans naturally have feelings in response to stimuli, external and internal events. 3) just as we intake and exhale air, or intake and digest and expel food, we feel and process emotions. 4) trying to not feel your emotions is about as healthy, in the long run, as holding your breath or plugging your asshole

Christopher: just like there are all sorts of ways for breathing and digestion to go weird, the same can be said for feeling emotions. getting the stimuli for a feeling, a reason for an emotion, and then NOT going through the process of feeling those emotions, is like holding it in, thus it’ll come out in ways that you don’t expect, and in the wrong place

He also went on to tell me how holding in emotions can cause anxiety – which has definately been true in my case, and is probably where all the drunken tears/anger comes from, as well as randomly feeling insecure or panicked for no apparent reason.

This shirt was made for me

I remember back when me and K were doing the we’re-not-dating-but-we-sort-of-are thing, sometimes I’d get very anxious, or feel as if something was wrong.  And I wouldn’t be able to figure out why. Now that I think about it, it was because we were doing something that I didn’t particularly want to do, but I didn’t say anything about it – I just went ahead and did it anyway because he wanted to. Or I was afraid that by disagreeing, I would be doing something ‘wrong’.

See, it wasn’t as if K was even imposing his will on me, or giving me any reason to feel afraid. He wasn’t doing that at all. I just have an unhealthy habit of letting significant others/people close to me completely take me over. It’s like once I’m ‘with’ them, as a significant other or anything else, my wants and needs are automatically subordinate to theirs. (Well, unless they want me to do something that I find so deeply unpleasant that I have to say something; or I trust them and I’m completely sure they won’t abandon me.)

So far, I’ve gotten a lot better about not doing those things… but I still do them.

Now, though, I can see why trying to bottle emotions up can be seriously bad for you – and bad for the friendships and relationships that you’re in. Because it’ll all come out eventually. Sometimes the Actor would be very demanding of me, or do something that really aggravated me, and I’d let it slide… but eventually so much frustration and resentment built up that I would end up yelling at him or fighting with him over something that, really, wasn’t more of a big deal than any of the other small, annoying things he did.

I think that I just need to give myself a voice. I need to let someone know in a civil manner that I don’t agree with something they’re doing instead of yelling about it later. I need to learn how to flirt and indicate interest in people normally instead of being afraid and then getting drunk and hanging all over them.

I am also beginning to understand that having feelings and wants and needs – and needing to express them – is simply human. I’m as entitled to it as everyone else; similarly, having emotions doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with me or that I’m somehow different.

I’m just human.

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