Reverie
Active member
OK, OK, OK...
So I didn't really stop. But I didn't keep spinning my wheels, either. I don't even remember how it happened other than Rider was asking about my stressful day, but we ended up talking about it and I had several pieces of additional discovery that I will just catalog here:
1) So Rider was asking me how my issue was related to my childhood issues, and I was reiterating the (previously quoted) passage from the book, and he wasn't fully understanding, so I tried to elaborate, and found myself stuck. Then while I tried to explain better, it dawned on me—the way it relates is this:
So, when shit is unpredictable as a kid, we're still trying to predict it. It's still human nature to seek out patterns and cause and effect. If we have no actual predictable cause and effect, we'll still make some shit up, because that's how human nature works. That's how we get magical thinking and superstition and the like.
And so, as a kid, I was always trying to catalog information and predict what my family situation would be like, as is human nature, but I never could, because I never had all the information, and nothing was predictable. Some of the info was being withheld from me by adults (perhaps rightfully) and some of it was just because the information was created in the moment (such as unpredictable actions by a parent due to substances). But all of it led to my feeling like the category of [information that I don't have] equaled [some unpredictable shit, often bad, was gonna happen].
And so, for me, whenever there is a big swath of [no info], my brain immediately plugs [here is where the danger lies] into that swath. And I panic. And here is where #2 comes in.
2) My absolute worst-case scenario at this point, practically, in a relationship, would be for Rider to leave me. For someone else, or otherwise. After all, what else could the fear be about? Except...
It's not actually that. I think of not having him—really think of it—and I'd be capital-F "Fine." After all, if I didn't feel that way, why would running off to a cave be a relief scenario for me? There was a point in my life when the idea of being alone would have terrified me. At this point, I think I could actually be HAPPY alone, once I got over the initial heartbreak.
HOWEVER...the idea of him engaging in relationships that trigger my "no info" setting is WAAAAAY worse, in terms of bodily stress reaction, than the idea of being alone. The idea of being alone is "meh...eventually"; the idea of him being even flirtatious with someone who is heartily pursuing him is "A BEAR IS CHASING ME AND I SHALL DIE OF A HEART ATTACK." At least in terms of the involuntary reaction of my body.
So...why? Why, if the "ultimate threat" is him leaving me for someone else, does the actual idea of him leaving me for someone else invoke "saddish meh" and the idea of being steamrollered over for one evening by a "no info" partner mean "BURN THE WORLD"?
I think it's because my lizard brain's conception of THE WORST THING EVER is not about heartbreak. It's not about being alone. It's all about not having control of the information that might protect me from THE EVEN WORSE THING that is yet to come—whatever that unimagined and unparalleledly terrible that thing might be.
And, not to be too emo here, but, as a kid, THE WORST THING ante was ever-upping to some really bizarre and unpredictable shit. Like, my dad once dragged a Christmas tree up the stairs just for the purpose of throwing it back down in a rage, and he also punched a very large household fish tank, therefore killing all his prized and expensive pets, just because he was angry. Just a small sampling. I'm really glad I'm not breeding.
So, yeah, I have had some therapy and some more will eventually be in order, I'm sure. But, finally, maybe, a shimmer of enlightenment.
3) I experience perhaps unusually high highs and low lows when it comes to love. Like, love can make or break my emotional world. It feels all-important. And how I described it to him tonight was that I finally see a point where I'd be OK never doing it, never feeling it, again, if there were to be an "after him." Because as high as the highs are, and as long as I stay there—and, admittedly, I spend WAAAY more time in the highs than in the lows with him—when I get to the lows, it's a deep, dark, black place that I don't think anyone would ever want to go...a place where I feel guilty even showing other people a roadmap of what it would look like to go there with me.
In the end, right now, the highs always outweigh the lows...not for the depth, but for the duration...but it does outweigh them. But to start something new...outside of him and the way he makes me feel...give me my solitude and my cats and I really don't think much at all about sex unless I'm close to a sexy man anyway, thankyouverymuch. I am the stuff cat-ladies are made of, by nature. But I actually am signing up to be with this dude because he is basically the best thing ever. So...if I find someone else, then I find them...and if I don't, then I just deal with him finding them...and if he runs off, then CAT LADY BINGO! No one's feelings to hurt in the ensuing eremitism. It sounds...peaceful.
So I didn't really stop. But I didn't keep spinning my wheels, either. I don't even remember how it happened other than Rider was asking about my stressful day, but we ended up talking about it and I had several pieces of additional discovery that I will just catalog here:
1) So Rider was asking me how my issue was related to my childhood issues, and I was reiterating the (previously quoted) passage from the book, and he wasn't fully understanding, so I tried to elaborate, and found myself stuck. Then while I tried to explain better, it dawned on me—the way it relates is this:
So, when shit is unpredictable as a kid, we're still trying to predict it. It's still human nature to seek out patterns and cause and effect. If we have no actual predictable cause and effect, we'll still make some shit up, because that's how human nature works. That's how we get magical thinking and superstition and the like.
And so, as a kid, I was always trying to catalog information and predict what my family situation would be like, as is human nature, but I never could, because I never had all the information, and nothing was predictable. Some of the info was being withheld from me by adults (perhaps rightfully) and some of it was just because the information was created in the moment (such as unpredictable actions by a parent due to substances). But all of it led to my feeling like the category of [information that I don't have] equaled [some unpredictable shit, often bad, was gonna happen].
And so, for me, whenever there is a big swath of [no info], my brain immediately plugs [here is where the danger lies] into that swath. And I panic. And here is where #2 comes in.
2) My absolute worst-case scenario at this point, practically, in a relationship, would be for Rider to leave me. For someone else, or otherwise. After all, what else could the fear be about? Except...
It's not actually that. I think of not having him—really think of it—and I'd be capital-F "Fine." After all, if I didn't feel that way, why would running off to a cave be a relief scenario for me? There was a point in my life when the idea of being alone would have terrified me. At this point, I think I could actually be HAPPY alone, once I got over the initial heartbreak.
HOWEVER...the idea of him engaging in relationships that trigger my "no info" setting is WAAAAAY worse, in terms of bodily stress reaction, than the idea of being alone. The idea of being alone is "meh...eventually"; the idea of him being even flirtatious with someone who is heartily pursuing him is "A BEAR IS CHASING ME AND I SHALL DIE OF A HEART ATTACK." At least in terms of the involuntary reaction of my body.
So...why? Why, if the "ultimate threat" is him leaving me for someone else, does the actual idea of him leaving me for someone else invoke "saddish meh" and the idea of being steamrollered over for one evening by a "no info" partner mean "BURN THE WORLD"?
I think it's because my lizard brain's conception of THE WORST THING EVER is not about heartbreak. It's not about being alone. It's all about not having control of the information that might protect me from THE EVEN WORSE THING that is yet to come—whatever that unimagined and unparalleledly terrible that thing might be.
And, not to be too emo here, but, as a kid, THE WORST THING ante was ever-upping to some really bizarre and unpredictable shit. Like, my dad once dragged a Christmas tree up the stairs just for the purpose of throwing it back down in a rage, and he also punched a very large household fish tank, therefore killing all his prized and expensive pets, just because he was angry. Just a small sampling. I'm really glad I'm not breeding.
So, yeah, I have had some therapy and some more will eventually be in order, I'm sure. But, finally, maybe, a shimmer of enlightenment.
3) I experience perhaps unusually high highs and low lows when it comes to love. Like, love can make or break my emotional world. It feels all-important. And how I described it to him tonight was that I finally see a point where I'd be OK never doing it, never feeling it, again, if there were to be an "after him." Because as high as the highs are, and as long as I stay there—and, admittedly, I spend WAAAY more time in the highs than in the lows with him—when I get to the lows, it's a deep, dark, black place that I don't think anyone would ever want to go...a place where I feel guilty even showing other people a roadmap of what it would look like to go there with me.
In the end, right now, the highs always outweigh the lows...not for the depth, but for the duration...but it does outweigh them. But to start something new...outside of him and the way he makes me feel...give me my solitude and my cats and I really don't think much at all about sex unless I'm close to a sexy man anyway, thankyouverymuch. I am the stuff cat-ladies are made of, by nature. But I actually am signing up to be with this dude because he is basically the best thing ever. So...if I find someone else, then I find them...and if I don't, then I just deal with him finding them...and if he runs off, then CAT LADY BINGO! No one's feelings to hurt in the ensuing eremitism. It sounds...peaceful.
I imagine anyone I don't know to be selfish, manipulative, and unpredictable, because my family. Ugh childhood scars ugh.